Performance Monitoring of Structures Founded on Coastal Plain Sediments in the SE United States

Performance monitoring of structures is an important aspect of geotechnical engineering that routinely is overlooked. All too often once the geotechnical report is written and submitted to the client, the geotechnical engineer is not involved further in the project unless there is a problem. In many cases of unsatisfactory performance involving geotechnical engineering, the problem is generally related to structure settlement. This paper presents the results of long-term settlement monitoring of several moderately- to heavily-loaded structures located in the southeastern United States (SEUS). The structures bear on typical Coastal Plain sediments and have had ongoing settlement monitoring programs. Comparisons of predicted and measured settlement are made and recommendations for future settlement prediction on similar soils are given.