380,000 Jobs Now in Jeopardy Because Congress Fails To Rescue America’s Transportation Account

‘TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 651: LRFD Design and Construction of Shallow Foundations for Highway Bridge Structures explores recommended changes to Section 10 of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation […]

[Editor] Note: NCS Consultants, LLC is Randy Post’s full time employer…ie. my day job! [/Editor]

There are some significant changes being made to the state of the practice in geotechnical engineering in Arizona. NCS Consultants, LLC has prepared three policy memoranda for the Arizona Department of Transportation or ADOT that have been issued to consultants all over the State. These memos are on the topics of bearing capacity and settlement of spread footings and retaining walls, the design of drilled shaft foundations in gravelly soils, and the preparation of drilled shaft axial capacity charts for use by bridge engineers.

Although primarily applicable to upcoming ADOT projects implementing the AASHTO 2007 LRFD code, the memos will have a ripple effect down through other local agencies within the state who frequently defer to ADOT guidelines for geotechnical engineering. Also, the memos and the ADOT/NCS approach to LRFD implementation in geotechnical engineering were presented by NCS at the 2008 TRB Conference in Washington D.C., and many other state DOTs and the FHWA were very excited about the memos. The approach used if not the exact content may become a model for other agencies. More info and links to download the policy memoranda are provided after the break.

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The American Geosciences Institute has an interesting article on the recently passed Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018 which provides record funding for geoscience agencies.  This includes a $63M or 6% increase for the USGS compared […]