Bachy Soletanche wins Innovation Award for ‘peanut design’ diaphragm wall
Geotechnical specialists, Bachy Soletanche, in conjunction with main contractor, Laing O’Rourke, and geotechnical designer, Garassino Eng. SrL, has been announced as the winner of the ICE Engineering Excellence Awards’ Innovation Award for its work on the £5m Isle of Grain Pump House Cofferdam project.
- The unusual project struck a chord with the judging panel after the innovative cellular diaphragm wall solution, nicknamed the ‘Peanut Design’
- Due to the nature of the task; to construct an underground pump house for E.On’s new CHP Power Station on the Isle of Grain in Kent; and the conditions Bachy Soletanche had to work with, it soon became apparent that the traditional route would not suffice
- Instead, Bachy proposed a cost saving and innovative solution that differed from the 30 year old initial design and manifested from the previous experience of Bachy Soletanche’s Far East division
- The key to the innovative three celled solution was the constructability of the four large ‘Y’ shaped panels where the adjacent cell walls and the cross walls met
- The concentrated loads coming from three directions meant that the joint had to be monolithic
- To construct a ‘Y’ shape, the panels were excavated with three bites of the grab, one for each leg
- These excavations were considerably larger than the other panels on the project
Paul Hodgson, Business Development Manager at Bachy Soletanche, said:
‘We’re thrilled to have won such a prestigious award and be recognised for our hard work and innovative techniques. The beauty of the Isle of Grain project was that most of the diaphragm walls were to be the permanent walls of the pump house, unlike the previous scheme where walls would be installed within a temporary excavated structure and infilled. The cross walls of the cellular scheme also served as two of the necessary divisions between the compartments of the pump house structure.”
“Working with Laing O’Rourke and Garassino Eng. SrL has also been a pleasure. Everyone is extremely pleased with the award win.”