Ports & Harbours

What & How

DMC provides specialized geotechnical consulting services to support port authorities, terminal operators, marine infrastructure owners, and coastal developers throughout British Columbia and Western Canada. Our team brings extensive experience working in complex coastal and nearshore environments, where variable soils, seismic loading, tidal influences, and aggressive marine conditions require robust, durable, and constructible foundation and earthworks solutions.
We support the planning, investigation, design, and rehabilitation of wharves, piers, dolphins, breakwaters, seawalls, and marine terminals. Our engineers combine strong offshore and nearshore investigation capability with advanced analytical tools to characterize subsurface conditions and develop foundation and earth retention systems that perform reliably under vessel berthing loads, wave and current forces, seismic demand, and long-term degradation.
From deep foundation design in soft marine sediments to seismic upgrade of aging port structures, DMC delivers practical, defensible engineering grounded in field experience and a clear understanding of marine construction constraints, operational continuity, and regulatory requirements.

Our Services Include :

Marine and nearshore geotechnical site investigations (boreholes, CPTs, vibrocores, geophysics).
Characterization of soft marine clays, silts, and loose sands.
Seismic site response and liquefaction assessment for port facilities based on the NRCan 6th Generation Seismic Hazard model.
Wharf, pier, dolphin, and trestle foundation design (steel pipe piles, H-piles, drilled shafts, caissons) with due consultation with specialist contractors.
Lateral pile analysis using p-y curves and LPILE (static, cyclic, and seismic loading).
Axial pile capacity analysis using S6-19 and drivability assessment using WEAP software.
Pile group interaction and lateral load distribution using GROUP.
Berthing and mooring load transfer to foundations.
Sheet pile and combi-wall design for quay walls and bulkheads including experience in assessing lateral earth pressures from liquefied backfill.
Seawall, revetment, and breakwater geotechnical design.
Scour, erosion, and slope stability assessment.
Ground improvement in marine sediments (densification, stone columns, deep soil mixing).
Settlement and consolidation analysis.
Instrumentation and performance monitoring.
Construction support and EOR services for marine works.
Rehabilitation and seismic upgrade of existing port structures.