All building and construction activities require reliable, relevant data about ground conditions to enable feasibility studies, planning and design.

Inadequate site investigations may lead to the wrong choice of foundation solution, incorrect dimensioning of foundations, ill-judged or dangerous execution of ground construction work as well as damage to neighbouring buildings or the structure itself. It may also lead to oversizing, and hence unnecessarily expensive foundations.

NGI's state-of-the-art expertise

• engineering properties of soils
• assessment site investigations necessary to determine geotechnical design parameters
• interpretation of in situ and laboratory tests

Services  related to site investigations on land

Since it was founded in 1953, NGI has contributed to the development of equipment and methods that optimally describe ground conditions. The development of thin-walled piston corers to obtain undisturbed samples of soft clay is an example of this. So is the develpoment and use of sounding methods, such as varoius rotation soundings and cone penetration testing.

NGI administer three modern mobile ground drilling rigs for drilling, sampling and in situ testing. Data from in situ testing can be transmitted electronically from the field to postprocessing and interpretation at NGI.

Research and development
Research efforts in the area of ground investigations on land are currently focused on the following subjects:

• further development of in situ methods
• improvement of sample quality
• correlation of soil parametrs

In connection with site investigations, NGI is also carrying out field model testing and instrumentation. We are active participants in the development of international standards and guidelines for site investigations and laboratory testing, on the basis of new knowledge obtained through client assignments and research conducted at NGI.