Measurement of bearing capacity

Bearing capacity is one of the parameters that cause most concern among technicians during the construction and useful lifetime of highways, airports and railways.

To ensure good structural performance, the right materials must be selected at the construction stage.  These must be used in combination with other considerations such as traffic density, weather conditions, features spending and investment policies, etc. if the proper bearing capacities are to be worked out in infrastructures.  Platform capacity is of particular importance in these stresses:  poor performance can lead to excessive stress and strain and thus to rapid fatigue in the top layers, considerably shortening the useful lifetime of infrastructures and bringing forward the need for renovation.

Once an infrastructure has been built, it is extremely helpful to be able to observe how bearing capacity varies over time, so that actions can be planned for conservation.  These may range from preventive actions taken before there is any significant deterioration to remedial actions when major structural failures occur.   When analysing the condition of roads various factors must be taken into account, though visual inspection and the measuring of bearing capacity via deflection are the main methods used to inform decision-making concerning renovation and reinforcement work, as per Ministry Circular 9/2002.

Euroconsult new Technoligies has acoustic analysis equipment for measuring bearing capacity, suited to the different requirements of each infrastructure.