Forensic Geotechnical Engineering and Expert Witness Services

Alpha Adroit Engineering Ltd is a Canadian professional engineering firm providing licensed forensic and remedial engineering services in Canada as well as in international locations. We accept all sizes of projects, and no job is too small or too big for Alpha Adroit. We care about our clients irrespective of the project size and are here to serve.  

Call us Toll-Free: 1-844-4-ADROIT  (1-844-423-7648) or contact us here. 

Alpha Adroit offers a wide range of forensic geotechnical engineering, geotechnical expert witness, expert opinion, failure investigation, civil engineering construction expert witness, geotechnical assessment of existing structures, and remedial and repair engineering consultation services for buildings, land developments, infrastructures, dams and levees, tailings management facilities, mining, oil and gas, pipeline, and other industries, including and not limited to:

    • Shallow and deep foundation failure investigation and repair
    • Slopes and landslides
    • Retaining walls 
    • Embankments
    • Excavations and shoring
    • Ground improvement
    • Pavements, roads, parking lots, sidewalks, driveways, mine haul roads, and dirt roads— investigation of concrete pavements, asphalt pavements, gravel pavements, and interlocking block pavements
    • Onshore and offshore pipelines
    • Fire Damage — Geotechnical assessment of fire damage (also explosion damage) to foundations, slopes, walls, and structural and non-structural concrete elements, including recommendations for remedial measures 
    • Flood Damage — Geotechnical assessment of flood damage to foundations, drainage systems, slopes, walls, and other geotechnical components of buildings and infrastructures, including recommendations for remedial measures 
    • Impact Damage — Geotechnical assessment of impact damage to foundations, retaining systems, and other geotechnical components, including recommendations for remedial measures
    • Investigation of damage due to leaky municipal infrastructures such as municipal water main leaks, municipal water main rupture (water main breaks), municipal fire hydrant damage, leaky water service line, municipal sanitary main and sewer pipe breaks and seepage, leaky sewer service line, basement seepage due to hydrostatic pressure, cavity formation and sinkholes due to underground seepage, private sanitary pipe breaks, private water supply pipe breaks, etc.
    • Retention pond and storm-water management systems
    • Dams and flood diversion systems
    • Advanced and routine field and laboratory materials testing and monitoring for forensic geotechnical engineering investigations
    • Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) for forensic engineering investigations, certification, inspection, and remediation verification
    • Geotechnical instrumentation and monitoring
    • Specialty rock and concrete coring and testing
    • Geotechnical Impact Assessment
    • Concrete damage investigation
    • Vibration monitoring and vibration alarm system 
    • Underwater (offshore, nearshore, coastal, river, and reservoir) geotechnical engineering failure and issues 
    • Geohazards assessments and control, including landslides, groundwater seepage, frost heave, thaw instability, swelling, settlement, liquefaction, sensitive soils, soft soils, ground collapse, buried valleys, underground cavities, and large-scale subsidence
    • Numerical modeling and geotechnical risk analysis
    • Specialized geotechnical engineering, testing, and monitoring services for land developments, buildings, roads, bridges, dams, tunnels, tank farms, towers, specialty infrastructures, slopes, landslides, open-pit mines, underground mines, underground caverns, mining site support facilities, pipelines, oil and gas, and manufacturing infrastructures 
    • Assessment of the bearing capacity and bearing resistance of existing shallow foundations (footings, slabs, and mat foundations) as well as pile foundations (may include using Pile Dynamic Analyzer, Pile Integrity Testing, or other Non-Destructive or Destructive Testing) 
    • Foundation repair consultation and engineering for underpinning, grouting, mud-jacking, and other remedial measures 
    • Geotechnical engineering aspects of the structural integrity of foundations, embankments, retaining walls, etc 
    • Geotechnical engineering aspects of construction disputes
    • Civil engineering aspects of construction disputes
    • Assessment of material properties, integrity, and as-built of old buildings with no background information, no as-built drawings, no design drawings, and no construction records
    • Accurate Robotic Gemomatic Surveying for Civil Engineering Applications (Angle Accuracy 0.5", Distance Accuracy 0.1 mm)
    • Geotechnical engineering aspects of oil and gas infrastructure and facility failures and remediation 
    • Ultrasonic Testing on Concrete including Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity (UPV), Ultrasonic Pulse-Echo (UPE), Ultrasonic Impact-Echo (UIE) including also non-homogeneous, reinforced concrete, rebar-congested concrete, concrete with rebar corrosion, aged concrete 
    • Concrete Penetrating Radar (Ground Penetrating Radar optimized for reinforced concrete) including also non-homogeneous, reinforced concrete, rebar-congested concrete, concrete with rebar corrosion, aged concrete 
    • Crack and Corrosion Mapping of deteriorated or damaged concrete for assessing the structural integrity of concrete structures 
    • NDT for structural integrity testing and foundation integrity assessment
    • Preventive and restorative geotechnical engineering
    • Expert multi-disciplinary engineering assessment for evaluating complex or high-risk problems, as well as for remediation and prevention measures
    • Expert witness and expert opinion services for litigation, insurance claims, and arbitration settlement procedures
    • Forensic investigation for research purposes 

Failure is an unacceptable difference between the expected and observed performance. Generally, an accident or failure is not the result of a single cause; it is usually the combination of several causes acting in concert or sequence. Some causes may have acted over time. Thus, the determination of the cause of such failures requires familiarity with a broad range of disciplines, and an ability to pursue several lines of investigation, simultaneously. Alpha Adroit's team of highly-qualified expert engineers with multi-disciplinary education and industry experiences since 1972 provides forensic investigation, failure analysis, forensic materials testing, and remedial engineering for commercial, residential, industrial, recreational, infrastructure, municipal, oil, gas, water, energy, dams, tunnels, rails, groundwater, waste management, permafrost, and mining applications. We enjoy engaging in projects of all sizes; no project is too small or too large for us.

Please note that: 

  • Foundation problems may appear in many shapes and forms such as cracking, settlement, heave, swelling, sinkhole formation, shallow or deep isolated or connected cavity formation, caving soils, general subsidence, ground collapse, foundation disintegration, loss of bearing capacity, seepage, leakage, vibrations, tilting and distortion of foundations and superstructure, slope failure, massive landslide, ground loss (due to active tunneling, existing tunnels, or abandoned underground mining), and more...

  • More commonly, the failure or malfunction of foundations may lead to cracking, differential vertical and horizontal deformation, and distortion of the building superstructure, as well as loss of structural integrity. If allowed to continue unchecked, the building may become unusable and may need to be demolished. 

  • Slope problems may show as cracking, settlement, lateral and vertical movements, tilting, or total collapse and destruction of the buildings and other structures. Slope failure may happen in the form of a catastrophic rotational or translational landslide, fall (such as a rockfall), toppling, lateral spread (creep), flow (such as mudflow), or a combination of these.

  • Careful investigation of ground conditions (geotechnical engineering also sometimes called soil engineering) and the defects are required to determine the actual cause of the problems to decide what method can or should be used as a remedial or preventive measure.

 

When a design, construction, structure, or any geotechnical engineering component fails or by any other means does not operate or function as planned or expected, Alpha Adroit Engineering is the one to call to investigate the cause of the failure(s) or mal-performance, to provide appropriate corrective and restorative measures. Alpha Adroit also offers preventive measures when risk is expected due to a lack of proper design, construction, or due to any other matters, including and not limited to the environment, aging, and accidents.

Alpha Adroit's forensic engineering team is experienced in forensic geotechnical engineering investigations, forensic engineering materials testing, analysis, and interpretation, as well as presenting and communicating complex and technical subject matters in a transparent manner that is understandable by non-technical audiences. 

Established in 1920 — APEGA is the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta, regulates the practices of engineering and geoscience in Alberta on behalf of the Government of Alberta under the Engineering and Geoscience Professions Act. 

Established in 1910 — ALSA is the Alberta Land Surveyors' Association under the Land Surveyors Act.

APEGA and ALSA are legislated professional associations that license individuals and companies that want to practice engineering and geoscience or land surveying in Alberta, respectively. Applicants and companies that meet the standards for ethical, professional, and technical competency earn the right to practice and use reserved titles and designations in these professional fields. Alpha Adroit uses various surveying and geomatics companies for different applications. Alpha Adroit is a registered professional engineering organization with APEGA (Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta), EGBC (Engineers and Geoscientists BC), APEGS (Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan), NAPEG (Northwest Territories and Nunavut Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists), and EngGeoMB (Engineers Geoscientists Manitoba).  EGBC regulates the practices of engineering and geoscience in British Columbia on behalf of the Government of British Columbia under the Professional Governance Act (PGA).  

We provide our forensic geotechnical engineering services throughout Canada, with major service centers in Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon. We also offer services in international locations directed through our headquarters office in Edmonton, Alberta. Major cities include Edmonton, Calgary, Red Deer, Fort McMurray (AB — Alberta), Vancouver (BC— British Columbia), and Saskatoon (SK— Saskatchewan). 

Call us Toll-Free: 1-844-4-ADROIT  (1-844-423-7648) or contact us here.