Geotechnical Experience with Bay Area Soils
R+C’s professional philosophy is to relieve our clients of problems—both predictable and unforeseen—through thorough investigation, analysis and development of cost-effective recommendations. The geotechnical staff members are accustomed to working intimately with structural and civil designers to assure that geotechnical recommendations are responsive not only to the particular site but also to the specific needs of the project. The geotechnical department prepares all specifications relating to earthwork and foundation installations on projects where R+C serves as structural engineer. The staff members also serve as peer reviewers to R+C’s structural engineers on major projects involving other geotechnical engineers.
R+C Geotechnical is experienced in essentially all soils conditions encountered in Northern California. Projects range from levee and dam evaluations in Santa Cruz, to foundation design on marginal sites including reclaimed lands and an old landfill adjacent to the San Francisco Bay, to fault hazard evaluations in Santa Rosa, to landslide mitigation at Sutro Hill, to the mitigation of geologic hazards on potentially liquefiable soils in Moss Landing.
Ground Motion Analysis
Our geotechnical and structural engineers work together to develop site-specific models of earthquake ground shaking including uniform hazard spectra and probabilistically rigorous conditional mean spectra. For projects on difficult sites, R+C performs linear and nonlinear site-response and soil-structure interaction studies for the most reliable estimate of ground shaking intensity. R+C has broad experience in the selection and scaling of representative earthquake ground motions for projects using nonlinear response history structural analysis. As a part of our seismic hazard practice, R+C regularly coordinates with state and national regulatory agencies to facilitate incorporation of accurate seismic hazard results into the efficient design of earthquake-resistant buildings.
