About
The time has come to help contractors and Engineers improve using BDSLT or even help them to self-perform.
Bi-directional testing has been around for decades now. Many Companies and Joint Ventures are ready to go it alone or at least do most of the heavy lifting with critical consulting and specific assistance instead of hiring a firm to do it all. Until now, no company or organization was willing to share knowledge openly with the industry about what to do and what not to do. We will. We are.
In order to self-perform, the contractor needs confidence that they are doing it right. We can get you there. Most of the things that are needed, like levels, strain gages, transducers and dial gages are already in wide use for top load testing or lateral testing. Many are already self-performing these tests. The only other thing they need are BDSLT jacks. We can help.
You are already drilling the shaft or pile, supplying a rebar cage, instrumenting cages and installing the test pile. Or some are designing the pile or inspecting the construction. Why not add a jack and some hoses?
BDSLT Knowledge Base
"The purpose of this site is to share knowledge about BDSLT and to answer questions."
Bi-directional testing is not easy. But neither is it easy to construct complex deep foundations. With the right ally, and by sharing some well learned lessons, decades of experience can passed on. Contractors and Engineers can give project owners confidence and quality they already expect form the best.
It is no longer the 90's. There is so much talent, we know a small bit of help will change attitudes about BDSLT self-performing. If you are not ready, we understand. We can still consult with you and let you know what you are facing or just offer an opinion.
Years ago, a few stepped forward and made complex testing, never possible before, possible. Sometimes the challenge was impossibly high loads. In other cases, tough ground or top of pile conditions such as subways, restricted spaces or off shore.
With cooperation and essential help from major Engineers, General Contractors and Drilled Shaft Contractors, the first BDSLT providers pioneered the fledgling sub-industry. The power of BDSLT was at first the ability to test full scale foundation elements such as drilled shafts. Until then, the Engineer would design as good as he or she could but larger and larger units were being designed and installed. Often healthy guesses were made relying on theory, engineering and much smaller scale tests to provide confidence.
In time, load tests revealed that loads were closer to predictions even on very large foundations. The industry improved. Then the testing became more practical increasingly smaller foundation elements, as small as 12 inches diameter and even lower than 100 tons.
But now is the time for the next step. The deep foundation industry can self-perform BDSLT in most cases. Experts can just buy materials from suppliers with or without the assistance of specialty consultants. We can teach you to make your own jacks or test kits and train your expert staff to do it all, especially if already self-performing top load testing.
This is a beginning.
We hope to expand this to a blog-type web site. But to start we invite friends to contribute anything useful or interesting by email.
Please be patient as we build up the site and add more ourselves. We will add more as news or important information comes our way.