Services

Our laboratory provides independent testing of soils, concrete, and asphalt.  The laboratory and field testing is performed in accordance with each project’s specified test methods.  Our laboratory is an American Association of State and Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE) accredited laboratory.  Obtaining and maintaining an AASHTO accreditation requires us to participate in proficiency sample programs, maintain calibration and training records, and successfully complete inspections from the AASHTO Materials Reference Laboratory (AMRL).

Proficiency demonstration in soils, aggregate, concrete and asphalt is a required standard of all NGE-TFT technicians. Currently, all NGE-TFT technicians are WAQTC and ACI certified.  WAQTC certification numbers are available on the Alaska DOT website (currently, no hard copy certificates are issued).

Laboratory and Field Technicians are responsible for accurately and honestly performing tests and inspections on materials in the field and laboratory.  Technicians are required to learn and demonstrate competence in a variety of test procedures in soils and aggregates.  Advancement is dependent on the testing and inspection skills, the range of testing and inspection abilities, client relations and work ethics.  All technicians are required, at a minimum, to obtain certification in WAQTC methods.

WAQTC certification is mandated by the State of Alaska, the Municipality of Anchorage and is increasingly required on private development projects.  WAQTC incorporates both ASTM and AASHTO methods and is unique in that technicians are required to demonstrate proficient knowledge in both field and laboratory testing of soils, aggregates, concrete and asphalt before being certified.

Geotechnical engineering services include exploration, design and construction management. Exploration work has ranged from single boring efforts for a portion of a single family residence to complete evaluation of a landslide involving tens of borings, specialty sampling, instrumentation, and long-term monitoring.  Design projects include foundations for a single family residence, private driveways, utilities, highways, multi-story buildings, dams, sheet pile and pipe pile docks, subdivisions, and frozen landfill containment. Construction projects have included dams, sheet pile and pipe pile docks, railroad embankments, repair of portions of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, and frozen ground piles.

Engineering services are tailored to the project needs. For simple small projects and preliminary assessments, a low cost approach is developed to save time and resources for the client. For larger, more complex projects, the work scope is developed to maximize the data collection for the design team, minimize the cost and time requirements, and to provide clear, concise documentation of the work completed, the engineering conclusions, and recommendations for the project.

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) is a non-invasive, cost-effective technology which uses pulses of electromagnetic energy to image features in the shallow subsurface.  NGE-TFT provides GPR services to projects across the state where conventional subsurface exploration methods (drilling, excavation, etc.) and/or inspection methods (rebar, slab thickness, etc.) may be prohibitive or undesirable due to equipment mobilization, access, buried utility conflicts, archeological/historical restrictions, or various other factors which exclude physical disturbance of the area being imaged. GPR can also be used in conjunction with standard exploration and inspection techniques to provide an additional level of subsurface information to a project at relatively little cost or effort.  NGE-TFT has successfully employed GPR technology to image buried pipelines and other buried utilities as well as to image shallow bedrock and to quantify organic overburnden thicknesses.

GPR technology works best in dry, electrically non-conductive materials such as sand and gravel, as well as construction materials such as concrete and asphalt.  The effective resolution of GPR varies based on the electrical properties of the materials being imaged and of the antenna frequency employed, but generally it can range from a few inches to upwards of 20-30 feet.  Nevertheless, GPR technology does have limitations, and some surface and subsurface conditions are prohibitive to effective GPR data acquisition.  Generally, a brief site assessment should be conducted prior to the commissioning of a GPR survey to evaluate the site conditions and determine if GPR technology may be a suitable exploration/inspection method for a given project.  New and/or unproven applications for GPR are constantly being discovered and tested, so contact NGE-TFT and let us work together to determine if GPR is a suitable technology for your next project!