The founder of this firm filed a patent application with the United States Patent and Trade Mark Office (USPTO.gov) titled “METHOD AND DEVICE FOR SUPPORTING LIGHTLY LOADED STRUCTURES AND PAVEMENTS ON HIGHLY EXPANSIVE SOILS”. This patent has been issued on August 2014. We are already using it on residential foundations and distressed pavements and parking lots. This firm is the only company in the world able to use this technology for the next 20 years. This is now a new option available to sites having highly expansive soils.
In summary, soils with moderate to very high swelling pressures cause distress to lightly loaded slabs and pavements. In the past, it was necessary to either use structural slabs, post tensioned slabs, ribbed mat or pier & grade beam foundations for the buildings. For the pavements, ground improvement was often prescribed.
With our method, a device is used in conjunction with normally available construction materials to economically support lightly loaded structures and pavements. This method will eliminate the need for pier and grade beams and it is suitable for soils/bedrock with a maximum swelling pressure of 25,000 psf (1,200 kPa). Foundation excavation often varies from 2.5 ft to 5.0 ft (0.8m-1.5m) depending on soil swelling pressure and frost depth. Allowable bearing pressure of about 2,000 to 4,000 psf (100 – 200 kPa) is all that is required.
In the United States, we are not your geotechnical or structural engineer of record. Although we are a team of engineers registered in California, Texas, Colorado, Virginia, New Mexico, Kentucky, and 11 other states. We are only granting you a one time use of the license. A separate license is needed for additional new project(s).
In the US, expansive soils cause more damage than flood, fire and earthquake events combined, each year. Worldwide, expansive soils or swelling soils or active soils are found on 50% of the earth’s surface.
We believe developers of residential homes and light commercial buildings will benefit from this new technology the most. Also State DOT’s in CA, TX, CO, OK, ND, SD, MS, TN, LA and many others will find this application very cost effective. This system will be very beneficial to developing nations due to its simplicity.
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