Trench Excavation Safety

Speaker:  Palisha Sthapit – Oldcastle Infrastructure

Presentation Description:

Excavation and Trench Safety presentation will walk the attendees through OSHA’s 29 CFR 1926 Construction Industry Regulations and Standards. The presentation gives an overview of different soil types, i.e. Stable Rock, Type A, Type B and Type C soil. The three different methods of identifying these soils will also be discussed ,i.e. Plasticity Test, Thumb Penetration Test and Pocket Penetrometer Test. Workers are exposed to various hazards while performing excavation and trenching operations. The presentation discusses protective measures and methods (sloping, benching, shoring and shielding) to take precautions against such hazards.

Speaker Bio:

Palisha Sthapic is the Technical Resource Engineer at Oldcastle Infrastructure. She lives in Houston and covers Houston, San Antonio and Austin regions promoting precast concrete drainage products, national standards, and specifications, as well as conducting training.

She received her bachelor’s degree in Architectural/Civil Engineering from University of Texas at Arlington with leadership honors. In her senior year of college, Palisha worked as an intern for American Concrete Pipe Association (ACPA). Working under QCast program at ACPA, she reviewed quality audits of precast drainage products from various producers. After graduation, she worked as a structural engineer at Tower Engineering Solutions designing and analyzing tower mounts.

Palisha came to United States in 2017 from Nepal to pursue her education. She speaks four languages and is very passionate about dancing and writing poetry. She loves exploring and meeting new people.