Norway's National GeoTest Site Research Infrastructure (NGTS)

Abstract

Benchmarking is a key to the reliability of the solutions in geotechnical engineering, both for testing and verifying innovative soil investigation methods and verifying and calibrating foundation solutions. NGI and its partners, NTNU, SINTEF, UNIS and the Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA), received funding from The Research Council of Norway to develop a new Norwegian GeoTest site research infrastructure. From 2016 to 2019, five benchmark sites will be established. The research infrastructure is unique in its wingspan, and the benchmark test sites will be available for at least the next 20 years. The five test sites cover a wide range of soil conditions: soft clay, silt, sand, quick clay and frozen soil (permafrost). The benchmark sites will be made available to industry, public authorities, research organizations and academia worldwide for testing new soil investigation methods and test equipment, verifying new foundation solutions, doing long term observations and performing specialized testing to, for example, develop soil models. The Norwegian infrastructure will also establish a network of specialists working on test and benchmark sites abroad and a dynamic database to include the information gathered at each site