Bachy Soletanche bears the load for city offices
Specialist geotechnical contractors, Bachy Soletanche Ltd, this month started work on its first Tower project of the year, and first multi-storey residential tower order received in the last 2 years, with main contractor Sir Robert McAlpine for Heron Land Developments, along side the client’s engineer, WSP. The large diameter city piling contract for the 36 storey Milton Court project near The Barbican in the City of London, is expected to last for 8 weeks and is worth an estimated £1 million.
- Continuous flight auger (CFA) up to 3750kN
- Large diameter auger (LDA) test piles up to 6000kN
- These will be used to verify the design for the bearing piles for the 2 city offices
- The 65m long secant wall will then be constructed on the North side using 900mm diameter CFA piles
- 880/760mm diameter CFA/LDA piles on the East side to facilitate the completion of the basement
- 124 no. 750 and 900 mm diameter CFA bearing piles, up to 28m deep
- 103 no. 900 and 105 LDA bearing piles, up to 30.5m deep, will be installed Noise levels will be closely monitored by ARUP Acoustics to ensure it stays at a level below 75dB
- The CM700 CFA rig and BG22 LDA rigs are being used for the piles
- Work also includes the setting out and getting rid of 5000m3 of excavated soils
- The insitu soils are 5m of Made-ground, on 26m of London Clay overlaying the Lambeth Group
Paul Hodgson, Business Development Manager at Bachy Soletanche, said:
“This is our first order for residential towers in London for 2 years – the majority of our larger projects during the first half of 2010 have been in the North so it will be nice to get back into the city. The variety of CFA rigs we have available made us the ideal candidate for the job and I look forward to seeing the project progress over the next few months.”