If your soil has a significant percent of fine-grained soils (over 10%), it is often necessary to “wash” the soil first. The wash sieve test utilizes a larger, reinforced No. 200 sieve to determine the percentage of fine-grained soils and coarse-grained soil. This is a part of the EMI GeoTech Design Guide Series. 

The pocket penetrometer and pocket torvane are portable tools that estimate undrained shear strength of fine-grained / cohesive soils. This is a part of the EMI GeoTech Design Guide Series. 

Josiah Baker - 2023

Hand augers are used to quickly identify the subsurface conditions of a project site. Augers allow for a soil profile characterization free of discontinuities or missed areas that can occur when using other equipment such as a split spoon sampler, which produces a sample every 400 to 500mm.This is a part of the EMI GeoTech Design Guide Series. 

Josiah Baker - 2023

Peter Clegg and Meg Collin (EMI UK) of the Feilden Foundation have produced this excellent sourcebook for school design in Africa (2025)

EMI Core Value Metrics as published on emiworld.org. Updated to March 2025.