DA Smith's dam drilling services include core drilling, destructive drilling, geotechnical drilling, and instrumentation in concrete arch, gravity, and embankment dams. Our surface equipment can be placed in almost any location at a dam. Our underground equipment is well-adapted to drilling in galleries and tunnels. We install instrumentation from leading manufacturers, including Geokon, RST, DGSI, Roctest, ESS Earth Sciences, and Campbell Scientific. DA Smith works with private dam owners, government agencies, engineering firms, and heavy civil constructors, and can adapt our capabilities to satisfy a wide spectrum of projects. DA Smith has been approved by the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for past drilling projects at FERC-regulated dams and is experienced with the regulatory approval process.
Member ASDSO.
- Core drilling to investigate concrete integrity
- Coring to examine concrete-bedrock contacts
- Concrete sampling for mechanical properties testing
- Sampling for alkali-silica reaction (ASR)
- Construction of uplift pressure water monitoring wells
- Drilling of pressure relief holes and drains
- Water hammer drilling where air hammer drilling is prohibited
- Auger and ODEX drilling and geotechnical sampling in embankment dams
- In situ stress measurements inside concrete dams and in foundation bedrock
- Optical and acoustic televiewer logging with third-party firms
- Dam crests and faces
- Spillways
- Galleries
- Tunnels
- Outlet works
- Underground
- Powerhouses
- Scaffolding
- Platforms
- Stairways
- Native ground
- Cliffsides
- Crane-access
- Helicopter-access
- Load cells
- Stressmeters
- Soft-inclusion stress cells
- Hydraulic borehole pressure cells (BPCs)
- MPBXs
- CSIRO hollow-inclusion cells (long-term 3D stress monitoring)
- Crackmeters
- Soil strain meters
- Inclinometers
- Pendulums and tiltmeters
- Settlement sensors
- Monitoring wells
- Piezometers
- Thermistors
- TDR cables
- Dataloggers and multiplexers
- Wireless systems
- Solar panels
- Cloud-based instrument monitoring
- In situ overcoring stress measurements rock/concrete
