{"id":5989,"date":"2017-12-21T17:17:42","date_gmt":"2017-12-21T21:17:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/?p=5989"},"modified":"2017-12-21T17:17:42","modified_gmt":"2017-12-21T21:17:42","slug":"optimism-and-confidence-may-impress-the-client-but-not-mother-nature-ref-1-or-how-lucky-do-you-feel-ref-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/2017\/12\/21\/optimism-and-confidence-may-impress-the-client-but-not-mother-nature-ref-1-or-how-lucky-do-you-feel-ref-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Optimism and confidence may impress the client but not Mother Nature (Ref. 1) Or, “How lucky do you feel…?” (Ref. 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Damaged foundations can\u00a0result in civil litigation<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was contacted recently by a good friend in the U.K., Len Threadgold.\u00a0 Len wanted to know how geotechnical investigation services are procured\u00a0here.\u00a0 This\u00a0kind of investigation determines the physical properties of the soils and rocks that support foundations.\u00a0 Engineers use this data\u00a0to design the foundations.<\/p>\n

Such an investigation is needed at every site because the foundation soil and rock conditions vary from site to site and\u00a0across a site. \u00a0I learned when I practised\u00a0in the U.K.\u00a0to “Expect the unexpected” when assessing foundation soil conditions.\u00a0 A similar mantra goes into the field with every\u00a0geotechnical engineer in Australia – “If in doubt go deeper” – to stronger soils.\u00a0 I had that drilled into me down there too.<\/p>\n

Len is chairman and chief engineer of Geotechnics Ltd., a\u00a0geotechnical and environmental engineering firm with offices\u00a0in several cities in\u00a0the\u00a0U.K.\u00a0 He was recently awarded the John Mitchell gold medal by The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) for “Excellence in geotechnical practice”.\u00a0\u00a0Len will give a talk in London at the ICE on January 24 on Re-thinking Site Investigation – Design, Practice and Procurement\u00a0to commemorate the award.<\/p>\n

How is all this relevant to forensic engineering investigation?<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 Because many, if not most\u00a0foundation failures are due to inadequate investigation of the ground which supports all building and civil engineering construction.\u00a0 Damaged foundations can result in civil litigation.<\/p>\n

Why are the investigations inadequate?<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 There are different reasons including foundation soil investigation services that are too often procured on the basis of low price in Canada and the U.K.<\/p>\n

The barest minimum investigation is (too) confidently recommended in the interest of\u00a0keeping costs down.\u00a0 This can lead to foundation failure and major cost overruns – there’s\u00a0no money in the quote\u00a0for chasing the evidence across a site if unexpected conditions are found.\u00a0 Cost and bottom line trump quality.<\/p>\n

Often enough no investigation is carried out and hope<\/em>\u00a0rather than engineering analysis prevails.<\/p>\n

Some studies in the U.K. indicated that project cost overruns due to unexpected ground conditions amounted to\u00a0about 17.5% of project cost for highways (Ref. 3) while the cost of geotechnical investigation was on average 0.21% of project cost.\u00a0\u00a0Cost overruns were\u00a083.3 times as much as investigation costs!\u00a0 If the difference between quoted prices for\u00a0site investigation was 10%\u00a0then this ratio becomes 833!! (Ref. 4) – not a sensible cost-benefit ratio.<\/p>\n

So decisions on who to\u00a0retain for\u00a0a geotechnical investigation\u00a0are based on trivial amounts of money, amounts much less than the cost of the reception desk in some offices and probably the cost of the opening ceremony.\u00a0(Ref. 4)<\/p>\n

I can’t help but think a similar situation exists here in Canada.<\/p>\n

(Nor can I resist noting that some people shop around for expert forensic services on the basis of low price, and similar problems with inadequate\u00a0forensic investigation may well result)<\/p>\n

Parents instill confidence in us but remember Mom is just below the ground surface ready to scold if we accept low quality to save a dollar.<\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. After, Professor, Sir A. W. Skempton, U.K., \u201cOptimism and overconfidence may impress one\u2019s clients but they have\u00a0no influence on the great forces of nature\u201d.\u00a0 Address of the President. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, 3, 1961, pp 39-42.<\/li>\n
  2. Clint Eastwood in the “Dirty Harry” movies, 1971 to 1988<\/li>\n
  3. Stuart Littlejohn, Inadequate Site Investigation, The Institution of Civil Engineers, U.K., 1991<\/li>\n
  4. Personal communication\u00a0with Len Threadgold, Geotechnics Ltd.,\u00a0U.K., 2017 (An initial\u00a0chat\u00a0with Len on his ICE award gave me the\u00a0idea to blog on this topic of inadequate geotechnical investigation, foundation failure and civil litigation)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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    Damaged foundations can\u00a0result in civil litigation I was contacted recently by a good friend in the U.K., Len Threadgold.\u00a0 Len wanted to know how geotechnical investigation services are procured\u00a0here.\u00a0 This\u00a0kind of investigation determines the physical properties of the soils and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5989"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5989"}],"version-history":[{"count":39,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6033,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5989\/revisions\/6033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}