Building Foundational Engineering

Foundations provide support for structures transferring their load to layers of soil or rock that have sufficient bearing capacity and suitable settlement characteristics to support them. There are a very wide range of foundation types suitable for different applications depending on considerations such as: The nature of the load requiring support ground conditions the presence of water space availability accessibility and sensitivity to noise and vibration. Very broadly foundations can be categorized as shallow foundations or deep foundations. Shallow foundations are typically used where the loads imposed by a structure are low relative to the bearing capacity of the surface soils. Deep foundations are necessary where the bearing capacity of the surface soils is not adequate to support the loads imposed by a structure and so those loads need to be transferred to deeper layers with higher bearing capacity.