
Geotechnical Design Services
Land development often is confronted by unique geotechnical, geologic and topographic conditions requiring specialty design and construction approaches. Those conditions include steep slopes, abrupt constructed grade changes, swelling soils and bedrock, collapsible soils, deep undocumented fills, abandoned landfills, brownfield sites, groundwater, and geologic constraints such as rockfall, debris flows and unstable slopes.
Geotechnical design services and/or geotechnical engineering consultation provided to specialty contractors include:
- Mechanically Stabilized Earth (MSE) and Soil Nail retaining walls
- Reinforced Soil Slopes (RSS)
- Rockfall mitigation
- Ground improvement to increase bearing and reduce settlement, including dynamic compaction, aggregate piers, and geogrids
- Soil amendment to reduce swell potential and stiffen pavement subgrades
- Subsurface drainage, including underdrain systems for buildings and pavements, interceptor drains, and groundwater seepage management
- Water Impoundment liner systems
- Instrumentation for monitoring slope and building movement, and groundwater levels


Environmental Treatment Facilities
Our environmental staff is experienced in evaluating treatment alternatives, as well as designing, constructing, operating, and maintaining treatment facilities to address contaminants in:
- Groundwater
- Surface Water
- Drinking Water
- Industrial Wastewater
Falling Weight Deflectometer
Nondestructive testing services consist of pavement structural evaluation through the use of a Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD). The FWD is a system for performing nondestructive testing of roadway, parking lot, and airfield pavements, both flexible and rigid.
The results of the FWD testing can be used to evaluate the following key structural aspects of an existing pavement:
- Pavement condition and load carrying capacity
- Uniformity of the pavement structure
- Strength characteristics of the individual pavement layers
- Resilient modulus, or subgrade strength, of the underlying subgrade materials
- Pavement deficiencies resulting from defective construction procedures
- Load transfer efficiency of joints and cracks in rigid pavements
- Detection of voids under existing pavements
Data collected from FWD testing as indicated above, and information resulting from the deduction of that data, are used to determine cost-effective designs and solutions to existing and future pavements. The information, used in conjunction with AASHTO or applicable state or local pavement design guidelines and anticipated future traffic loading information, will provide the following pavement design and/or pavement management information:
- Estimated remaining life of the pavement
- Overlay requirements
- Reconstruction or new construction pavement sections


On-Site Wastewater Treatment System (OWTS) Designs
K+A provides unique OWTS designs for residences along the Front Range and challenging mountain properties. Our extensive experience in providing site evaluations for residential development helps us provide the right OWTS for your project. Our understanding of current County and State regulations reduces the risk of delays and design changes during the permitting process.
- Standard Systems including Trenches, Beds and Chambers
- Pressure Distribution and Dosing Systems
- Higher Level Treatment Systems
- Mounded and Unlined Sand Filters
- Non-Pressurized Drip Dispersal Systems (NDDS)
- Soil Replacement including Processing and Reuse of Existing Soil and Bedrock
- As-Built Evaluations
Designers, for your next project we are able provide visual and tactile evaluations of soil profile test pit excavations in the area of the proposed Soil Treatment Area (STA) to establish a Long-Term Acceptance Rate (LTAR) of the soils and determine if a limiting layer is present.