Olson Engineering, Inc

Who We Are

Olson Engineering, Inc. has provided state-of-the-art Structural and Infrastructure NDT Condition Assessment services since 1985. The staff of Olson Engineering has been carefully assembled to have world class expertise in the following NDT&E consulting service areas:

Nondestructive Evaluation (NDT) of Structures & Infrastructure
Structural Repair/Rehabilitation & Forensic Engineering
Structural Health Condition Monitoring
Geophysical Engineering
Vibration Engineering
Applied Research & Development
NDT Training / NDT Seminar Courses
Noteworthy Consulting Projects include the following NDT projects conducted for condition assessment of structures and infrastructure:

Indiana Toll Road (Interstate 90): Structural Condition Assessment and Repairs Consultation for 8 -50 yr old bridges along the toll road in Gary, Indiana. Investigated the integrity of concrete decks, steel girders, columns and beams, concrete piers and abutments, and timber, concrete, monotube and steel piles.
Pilot Technology Transfer Project in Joint Venture (JV) with Ultra Technologies in New Delhi, India for the Nondestructive Evaluation of Unknown Bridge Piers and Abutments, presented to personnel from the Northern Railways of Indian National Railways, New Delhi, India.
Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials historic preservation studies of the concrete substructure and marble of both memorials as well as vibration damage mitigation and corrosion evaluation studies at the Jefferson Memorial.
Korean High Speed Rail Line construction quality audit with NDE and Geophysical methods of embankments, bridge foundations and tunnel linings from Seoul to Taejon, South Korea.
Regional Transit District Southwest Corridor structural condition assessment of 10 box girder bridges for concrete placement and consolidation problems in Denver, Colorado.
Dam Safety Evaluations of Concrete and Masonry Conditions with surface waves, velocity tomographic imaging, impact echo and radar methods nationally.
Impact Echo testing with a remotely-operated Concrete Thickness Gauge mounted on an iRobot tracked robot to test a stone door in an air shaft in the Cheops Great Pyramid at Giza, Egypt as shown in a National Geographic's television special that aired in September of 2002.
Over the years, research activities for Olson Engineering, Inc. have included seven externally funded projects with grants of more than $1.8 million as well as a large number smaller externally funded, jointly funded, and internally funded projects. Dr. Yajai Tinkey, Senior Research Engineer of Olson Engineering, is currently serving as the Principal Investigator (PI) and Mr. Olson as the co-PI on a National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) IDEA grant for stress wave scanning of post-tensioned bridge ducts to check for voided ducts to mitigate corrosion risk of tendons. Mr. Olson was the Principal Investigator on Phases 1 and 2 of NCHRP 21-05 (2) research grant for the Determination of Unknown Bridge Foundations from 1993-2001. We also completed an FHWA study for dynamic evaluation of bridge substructures in 2002. In the 1990's Mr. Olson was the Principal Investigator in a Phase I National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Ultrasonic Tomography study for concrete flaw imaging. He was also the Principal Investigator on a US Dept. of Agriculture Phase I SBIR grant for stress-wave scanning of wood.

Mr. Olson has served as technical consultant on a Phase I research grant by the Maryland Highway Administration to the University of Maryland for NDT of bridges. He has also served as a technical consultant on the SHRP H-104 project that researched and developed the seismic pavement analyzer, a pavement testing device, at the University at Texas at El Paso. He was the Principal Investigator for a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation grant for impact echo scanning of concrete pipes to identify corrosion of pre-stressed wire strand in the mid-1990's

In 1988, he was the Principal Investigator of an NSF SBIR grant to evaluate the feasibility of using the Spectral Analysis for Surface Waves (SASW) methods to determine the extent and thickness of frozen and thawed ground. In 1987, he served as principal technical consultant on a joint venture project funded by the National Science Foundations (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program to nondestructively predict concrete strength by Impact Echo, Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity and Rebound Hammer methods.

Our engineers have been continually refining the applications of Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) methods and their engineering evaluation judgment through hundreds of thousands of tests in a wide variety of investigations. As a result, we have experience in condition assessment of a wide array of materials including concrete, masonry, steel and other metals, timber, asphalt, soil, rock, and other materials.

To make NDE practical and viable in the construction industry, Mr. Larry D. Olson, P.E., President and Principal Engineer, and Mr. Dennis A. Sack, Vice President and Associate Engineer, have assembled a multidisciplinary group of dedicated people whose backgrounds include Civil Engineering (structural, geotechnical, pavement and materials engineers), Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, and Geophysical Engineering. Together, we combine strengths that enable us to develop state-of-the-art testing procedures, and to develop instruments and test procedures to meet special project needs.

We have worked all over the United States as well as around the world with consulting projects in Australia, Germany, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Italy, Mexico, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and the United Kingdom. 

We have branch offices located across the United States covering all regions— New Jersey (greater metropolitan New York City area), New Mexico, and our new location in Manassas, Virginia operated by Olson's President & Principal Engineer, Mr. Larry D. Olson.

Service Areas of Olson Engineering

Olson Engineering serves a wide variety of industries and clients that utilize concrete, masonry, wood, asphalt, stone, pipe, reinforcement, and conduits for the purpose of constructing, maintaining, and retrofitting civil structures. This is a partial list of the types of industries and clients we have helped over the years:

• Bridge Contractors: by evaluating the integrity of both the structure and substructure of bridges.
• Electricians: by locating and detecting reinforcement, pipes, and conduits in existing buildings.
• Environmental Contractors and Engineers: by investigating radioactive containers, clay caps used for containing toxic materials, and imaging soil and rock profiles for large wind turbine projects.
• Oil & Gas Industries: by evaluating the integrity of the material composing the pipelines, refineries, jetties, buildings, and bridges used for manufacturing.
• Railroad Contractors: by evaluating the drilled shafts used to support railroad bridges.
• General Contractors: when problems arise during construction or when retrofitting is necessary.
• Water and Wastewater Facilities: by evaluating dams, holding tanks, spillways, pipes, and tunnels for integrity and structural stability.

The characteristics of Nondestructive Testing allow the various methods available to be used for many applications within the industries we serve. Some of these applications include:

• Assessing the condition of deep foundations and driven piles.
• Characterizing unknown foundation depths and conditions.
• Evaluating the structural integrity of buildings, bridges, and other structures.
• Characterizing reinforcement, conduits, and concrete integrity and thickness for the purpose of retrofitting buildings, bridges, and other structures.
• Assessing the integrity of pavements, slabs-on-grade, and the subgrade materials that support them.
• Investigating the integrity and location of pipes, conduits, tunnels, and mineshafts.
• Characterizing dams and spillways for retrofitting and condition assessment purposes.
• Imaging the subsurface for large construction and environmental projects.
• Characterizing the soil and rock properties for seismic design purposes.
• Monitoring vibrations during pile driving, construction activities near sensitive structures, and during blasting operations.
• Site investigation for the measurement of ambient and operating vibrations for electronics and other vibration sensitive manufacturing.
• Vibration measurement and analysis of rock crushers and other mine equipment.
• Vibration monitoring during rehabilitation activities performed on historic structures.

Although this list describes some of the NDT investigations that Olson Engineering routinely performs, there are many other areas in which we have applied NDT methods. We are on the forefront of product research, designing, and manufacturing the very equipment we test with. Please call and speak directly with one of our engineers concerning your project(s) and we will be happy to discuss your needs. Olson Engineering considers no job to be too large or too small for nondestructive evaluation and assessment. Click on the 'contact us' button in the navigation bar above to located the best office location that may be able to assist.

Olson Engineering offers a wide variety of Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) services to meet the needs of our clients. Our services include the performance of test methods that can detect and characterize unseen damage in almost any type of structure, as well as for quality assurance evaluations of new and replacement infrastructure. Our NDE methods can reveal flaws and defects in structural elements high above the ground, at grade, as well as deep underground in all types of civil structures, whether newly placed or having existed for a millennium.

Internal Conditions Assessed with Nondestructive Testing & Evaluation (NDT)

• Measure thickness and detect flaws in concrete, shotcrete, masonry, steel, asphalt, wood and composite materials
• Map concrete cracking, delamination and corrosion of reinforcing, void, honeycomb, fire and frost damage
• Detect wood decay, checking and splitting
• Locate and map internal embedments and steel reinforcement
• Indentify masonry cells
• Image internal conditions of structures
• Predict strength and stiffness of concrete, wood, masonry and asphalt by correlating NDE results with strength tests of specimens
• Conduct integrity evaluations of deep foundations
• Determine unknown foundation types and depths
• Locate void/poor subrade support conditions for pavements, slabs, and tunnels

Olson Engineering has applied NDE methods as part of investigations into the condition of a wide variety of structural types including bridges, buildings, deep foundations, dams, pavements, slabs, tunnels, etc. Olson Engineering will discuss your needs as a client, and help you to develop the testing and evaluation program required to gather the information you need. We are a full-service company that can not only aquire data on the condition of a structure, analyze it, and provide you with easy to understand results, but we can also provide repair suggestions and other solutions to complex structural problems.

Olson Engineering, Inc. performs a wide variety of NDE methods applicable to foundation evaluation, both for forensic evaluations of existing foundations as well as quality assurance of new construction. We have conducted investigations on nearly all types of foundations in use, including drilled shafts, auger cast piles, steel and concrete driven piles, mat foundations, spread footers, massive caissons, stone and masonry foundations, and others. The methods used for foundation analysis can be examined in more detail in this section, using the menu bar to the left to click into each method. Included are short descriptions of each method, the applications for each method, and (for most) a link to a PDF file with a more detailed technical description of the method.

Olson Engineering, Inc. has completed thousands of projects over the course of more than 25 years of service. These projects range from small slab and foundation investigations requiring only a few hours in the field, to large dam and highway projects requiring many months of effort. Many of our projects have included investigations of dams, buildings, bridges, pavements, slabs, tunnels, mines, water pipes, historic buildings, facades, slurry walls, deep foundations, and archeological remains. For some projects, we customized, developed and fabricated different Nondestructive Testing (NDT) methods and the corresponding equipment to meet new or unusual client needs. As a result of this commitment to be specialists in the NDT market, our capabilities have expanded beyond our initial emphasis and expertise in concrete to include stone, masonry, wood, asphalt, steel, soil and rock. 

Olson Engineering professionals use the testing equipment designed and manufactured by our sister company, Olson Instruments for the majority of the projects shown on our website. With this said, you can be guaranteed that we are highly trained/skilled in data collection and interpretation, providing you with peace of mind — every time.

We have assembled a sampling of just some of the many projects Olson has been involved in over the years on our website. These sample projects are provided to convey Olson Engineering's broad capabilities for fulfilling your nondestructive testing and evaluation needs.