Exponent services

Exponent’s geotechnical engineering staff has extensive experience in laboratory soil testing, field testing, sampling, and monitoring. Our expertise in laboratory testing and field work allows us to provide comprehensive geotechnical services to our clients. Our soil testing equipment enables us to perform in-house testing of soil physical properties for most of our projects. Geotechnical testing provides supporting data and represents a key component in many of our investigations, including site characterization; seismic (earthquake) studies; evaluations of soil settlement, expansive soil behavior, soil collapse potential, ground subsidence, landslide and slope stability, and moisture intrusion; and performance assessments for dams, retaining walls, and other structures.

For more than 40 years, Exponent (formerly Failure Analysis Associates) has been recognized as a leader in the investigation of major engineering failures and disasters. With a professional staff that covers more than 90 technical disciplines, Exponent’s emergency response is unparalleled in the industry because of our ability to assemble a multidisciplinary team covering every expertise required to respond to virtually any emergency. Exponent staff have significant experience in data collection, sample preservation and documentation, and potential longer term impacts (e.g., damage claims, regulatory agency interaction, litigation, etc.) of emergency events. Our emergency response experience includes many high-profile failures, accidents, and natural disasters including the World Trade Center attack, Hurricane Katrina, Northridge Earthquake, and the Piper Alpha oil rig explosion.

Exponent’s ecologists and resource economists provide companies and government agencies with strategic support on implementing strategies for identifying, accounting for, and sustaining ecological assets. Corporations are looking for sustainable ways in which they can maintain profitable business operations and minimize their environmental footprints. One important aspect of a firm’s environmental footprint is the effect of operations on ecological services. Ecological services are natural processes that provide environmental benefits or benefits to humans, such as groundwater recharge, potable water, and wildlife habitat. Conventional practices such as mitigation and restoration can be costly to companies, but these costs can be partially or wholly offset by monetized credits traded in markets and good will. The credit market works on the basic economic laws of supply and demand and companies that earn credits can sell them to generate revenue.

Assessing the potential effects on natural communities, ecosystems, and individual organisms, or selected groups of organisms, within ecosystems is becoming integral to the regulation of pesticides and industrial chemicals. In certain cases, potential effects on the environment drive the decisions regarding uses of a chemical. In the U.S., the legal framework for evaluating uses and potential environmental effects and risks of chemicals includes the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, and other federal and state environmental statutes. The U.S. EPA has primary responsibility for overseeing and administering many of these requirements. Similar legislation exists in the EU, including the Plant Protection Products Directive (919/414/EEC) and the BIocidal products Directive (98/8/EC).

Exponent has truly unique capabilities when it comes to air quality assessment. In addition to providing emissions inventory, dispersion modeling, monitoring (stack and ambient), regulatory and litigation support services, our capabilities extend to other aspects not found in traditional consulting firms. Our chemical and combustion engineers provide support in calculating emissions related to issues such as new process emissions, fugitive emissions, or emissions from fires, explosions, accidental releases, and other “unusual” occurrences that happen in the real world. Our engineers don’t just go to a book or website to look up the best air pollution control design. Our engineers have experience with the design, installation, and operation of such systems.