GRL Engineers Celebrates 50 Years of Deep Foundation Innovation

From Humble Beginnings

In 1976, George Goble, Frank Rausche, and Garland Likins opened a specialty engineering firm named Goble & Associates Inc. based on their earlier research project at Case Western Reserve University. The small startup, located above a grocery store, led to a worldwide industry using dynamic measurements for quality assurance on deep foundations. That firm became Goble Rausche Likins & Associates in 1984, and then simply GRL Engineers, Inc. in 2002. While the name changed, the firm’s emphasis on providing timely testing services and results to support deep foundation installations did not.

Historically the firm has been heavily involved in deep foundation testing and analyses on highway bridge projects, airport terminals and facilities, high-rise buildings, industrial facilities, infrastructure projects as well as offshore structures. This has led to expansion of our service offerings as new technology and methods were introduced by Pile Dynamics or others in the deep foundation industry.

Service Offerings

In 1976, the initial service offerings included dynamic pile testing with the Pile Driving Analyzer^® (PDA), dynamic test analysis with the Case Pile Wave Analysis Program (CAPWAP^®), and predictive pile driving studies with the Wave Equation Analysis of Pile Driving Program (WEAP). In 1982, the firm performed dynamic load testing (DLT) and analysis on several rock socketed drilled shafts on the West Gate Freeway project in Melbourne, Australia. These tests used a contractor designed, free-release, drop hammer with a 22-ton ram. This led to subsequent dynamic load tests on drilled foundations in the United States using various contractor designed and supplied drop hammers. In 2000, GRL introduced its own APPLE drop hammer system to facilitate dynamic load testing on drilled shaft and auger cast-in-place piles, as well as for driven piles that required a large hammer to mobilize the soil/rock resistance.

Energy assessments of the Standard Penetration Test (SPT) initiated with a 1987 Colorado Division of Highways grant to study SPT tests used by the CDH. This in turn led to the strain gage instrumented SPT rods used today for SPT energy measurements.

Also in 1987, GRL performed its first low strain pile integrity tests (PIT) to evaluate integrity concerns on a project in Florida and another in Virginia. A decade would pass before GRL would perform its initial Crosshole Sonic Logging (CSL) integrity tests on drilled shaft projects in Washington and in North Carolina. That early work was done with a commercial CSL system from Asia and would ultimately lead to Pile Dynamics developing the more robust Cross Hole Analyzer CSL system in 2000. The next addition to GRL’s integrity testing capabilities occurred in 2011 when Thermal Integrity Profiling (TIP) was added to GRL’s service line. Sequoia National Park in California was the site of our first TIP project. The final addition to our integrity service line occurred in 2020 when GRL added Gamma-Gamma Logging (GGL). Our initial GGL project was the utility bridge at Sunnyvale WTP in Sunnyvale, CA.

Additions to the firm’s load testing capabilities, beyond that provided by dynamic pile testing with the PDA and dynamic load testing with the APPLE Systems, occurred in 2015. At that time, GRL began offering static load test (SLT) loading frames in conjunction with our load test monitoring services. The final option in GRL’s load testing capabilities arrived in 2017 with GRL introducing bi-directional static load testing (BDSLT) services with the GRL-Cell. GRL’s initial BDSLT project was a rock-socketed drilled shaft in the Bronx, NY.

Also in 2017, GRL started offering base cleanliness testing for drilled shafts with the Shaft Quantitative Inspection Device (SQUID). The first SQUID project was for the NSRR bridge over the Grand River in Painesville, OH. GRL added verticality testing of drilled shaft excavations in 2018 with the Shaft Area Profile Evaluator (SHAPE^®) and performed its first tests at the Rude Bridge project in Wheeling, WV.

Office Growth

As the requests for deep foundation testing services increased, GRL opened branch office locations to more efficiently and economically satisfy client testing schedules and construction demands. GRL’s initial group of branch offices were opened in Colorado (1986), as well as in Florida and Pennsylvania (1987). Continued growth resulted in additional office openings in Washington (1990), Illinois (1992), North Carolina (1994), and California (1995). The most recent growth led to GRL branch office openings in Louisiana (2010), Texas (2015), and Hawaii (2021).

Signature Projects

Over our 50-year history, GRL has provided services on numerous signature projects. In the last 25 years, a sampling of these have included the Marquette Interchange (2006-2008) in Milwaukee, WI (PDA, APPLE); 67 miles of new I-69 (2007-2025) interstate construction from Evansville to Indianapolis, IN (PDA, TIP, CSL, PIT and SLT); numerous California High Speed Rail (2015-2026) bridge foundations (WEAP, PDA, SLT, SHAPE, SQUID and BDSLT); the Bonner Bridge (2016-2018) to Cape Hatteras, NC (PDA, Remote PDA and SLT); the Central 70 Project (2018) through Denver, CO (CSL, TIP); the Gordie Howe Bridge (2019-2021) over the Detroit River (SQUID, PDA); Climate Pledge Arena (2019) in Seattle, WA (TIP); the Raritan River Bridge (2020-2022) replacement (WEAP, PDA, CSL, TIP, and PIT); the I-4 Ultimate Project (2020-2026) in Orlando, FL (WEAP, PDA); the Plaquemines LNG Terminal (2022-2023) in Plaquemines Parish, LA (PIT, SLT, DLT, APPLE); the Sand Island Wastewater Treatment plant (2022) in Honolulu, HI (BDSLT, TIP); and Samsung’s semiconductor plant (2022-2026) in Taylor, TX (BDSLT, TIP, CSL, SQUID, SHAPE, DLT, APPLE, PIT).