Putting a skyscraper up isn't as easy as picking a spot and building a tall building. There are several things that go into picking the right spot for a building. One of those important things is what the soil makeup is. You may think that dirt is just dirt, but when it comes to building a skyscraper, that's not true.
Load Bearing Capability
One very important reason to know what the soil is made up of is because different kinds of soil can bear different amounts of weight. Even though each building will have a massive foundation, generally with large concrete piers driven into the ground to help support the weight of the building, that doesn't mean that the weight isn't also supported by the soil. Therefore, it's really important to know the load bearing capability of the soil. One way to do that is to take a soil sample and evaluate the soil.
Soil Evaluation
For this purpose, soil evaluation doesn't mean just scooping up some dirt and checking it out. What happens is that engineers who are working on the building arrange to have soil samples taken. They do by have a huge boring machine. The machine uses a special drill to dig down into the soil. When it's withdrawn, there is a huge tube of soil that comes up with the drill. That may happen in a few different places on the site to make sure that the soil is relatively consistent throughout the entire site.
After the samples are taken, it's time to send them to a lab. The lab will look for different things while they have the soil samples. One thing they will do is to find out the primary type of soil found on the site. They are looking to see if the soil is primarily sandy or clay, for example. Clay and sand can take different amounts of weight. Another way that the soil is evaluated is to see how much it compresses under weight. That will give the engineers a good idea as to how tall the building can be. One way that they measure the compression is to put the soil sample under something like a hydraulic press. That puts a huge amount of pressure on the soil sample and shows how much it compresses and how much weight it can handle.
Picking the right site for a skyscraper is important. Soil makeup is one of the things that can influence the decision. For more information, contact companies like Uni Tech Drilling Company Inc.
