Geotechnical Engineering

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Vast Experience

C-CORE has extensive experience providing geotechnical engineering services to the oil and gas and pipeline industries - services that focus mainly on physical and numerical modelling. In addition to a highly qualified staff, we have additional expertise through our valuable partnerships with industry, institutes and universities.

Technical Focus

C-CORE's geotechnical expertise concentrates on centrifuge modelling, full-scale modelling, pipeline testing, ice/seabed interaction, soil/structure interaction, and risk and numerical analysis. We have considerable expertise in investigating gravity-dependent phenomena using reduced scale physical modelling in our centrifuge facility.

World Class Centrifuge Facility

Centrifuge modelling is currently the most reliable technique using small-scale tests of geotechnical phenomena to predict full-scale conditions in various environments. C-CORE maintains a world class centrifuge machine with a payload cargo capacity of 200 G's. We apply geotechnical centrifuge testing to offshore systems including offshore production platforms and their mooring systems, pipelines, and onshore structures such as dams, pipelines, mines and large buildings. Tests can be observed online. C-CORE holds an NSERC Major Facilities Access (MFA) to support Canadian academic research. Our centrifuge facility is complemented by our full-scale pipeline testing facility.

Earthquake Simulator

C-CORE began its commissioning of an earthquake simulator developed by Actidyn Systèmes at C CORE in early 2004. The addition of this simulator to C CORE's geotechnical centrifuge makes it the only geotechnical centrifuge in Canada with earthquake modelling capabilities.

The simulator is equipped with a fully computerized control system that can generate several modes of excitation, such as sine, broadband noise or arbitrary transient waveforms with both amplitude and frequency control. The three main components of the control system are: a logic controller, a set of hydraulic loop controllers, and a dual axis digital controller and generator.