We were shortlisted in three categories but won the award the for best UK project with a geotechnical value under £1M for the Foxbank, Bewdley Slope Stabilisation project.

This was a joint submission in conjunction with WM Longreach and P&S Consulting Engineers (PaSCoE).

Len Threadgold, Company Chairman of Geotechnics, said “We were thrilled to win the award, considering the record number and high standard of entries this year . The site was not large but constricted access posed major challenges for both the Site Investigation and the design of a practical solution to the problem of landslip in this steeply sloping, sensitive and busy residential location. The success of the project was due to innovative construction and working practices by the Contractor, his cooperative and flexible approach, the skill of the site staff and close liaison with the designers and site owners throughout the project. We look forward to continued growth and development as a leader in this area of industry”

Please follow the links to read more about this project, for full details of the 2012 Ground Engineering Awards and a list of winners.

Project, Foxbank, Bewdley Slope Stabilisation, was a joint submission with P & S Consulting Engineers (Pascoe) and W M Longreach and has been shortlisted for category, UK Project with a Geotechnical Value up to £1M along with Wimbleball Dam for categories, Product and Equipment Innovation and Award For Technical Excellence. Please follow the links for more details of the projects shortlisted.

Ground Engineering received a record number of entries this year, and at a very high standard, so being a finalist is a fantastic achievement and we are delighted.

The winners will be announced at an exclusive awards lunch at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London in May.

Una spent the first 13 years of her working life in the motor trade where she met and married her husband Mac.  They both spent 2 years working in the construction industry in Abu Dhabi, UAE, returning to the UK for the birth of their son Edward. 

Una was in on the formation of Geotechnics Limited in 1983 and started the long and happy process of helping to develop and establish Geotechnics as it is today. She was appointed Company Secretary in November 1987, Director in September 1989 and Joint Managing Director in December 2007. She managed all accounts and administration functions throughout this period as she watched and steered the growth of Geotechnics from a staff of 7 through to current staff numbers of 72.

The Company started in offices in Kenilworth and quickly moved to premises in the Foleshill Road in Coventry where its laboratory was also established. Subsequently, growth meant a further move to its current Head Office on Torrington Avenue in Coventry. During this time, additional offices were established in Exeter and Chester to meet the ever growing order book for these areas.

Una has helped to create the bedrock on which the development of the Company has been founded and has played a vital part in its success, often through difficult times. We wish her and Mac a long, healthy and happy well-earned retirement (although we do have her address and telephone number for future reference!!).

We are pleased to welcome Dawn Wadsworth, who joined the company in October as its Finance and Administration Manager, based in the Coventry office. Dawn has worked within the Construction Industry for much of her career and hence is aware of its characteristics. After a three month transition period with Una she has also been learning the peculiarities of the Geotechnical and Ground Engineering industries and has quickly demonstrated an ability to adapt to this new environment. We look forward to her working and developing with us.

This year Geotechnics Limited has had continued involvement in Greater Manchester’s Metrolink expansion project which will create  several new lines by 2016. This should see great improvement in the transport infrastructure for Manchester by considerably reducing car journeys on the local roads.     Geotechnics won the contract to investigate the first phase of work at the main tram maintenance depot in the Trafford area of the city in 2008 and was subsequently approached by MPact-Thales (MPT) – the Thales, Laing O’Rourke & Volker Rail consortium – on behalf of TfGM to undertake further site investigations. Geotechnics Ltd has continued to carry out further ground investigation work across the scheme this year.

With the investigation work successfully completed, Geotechnics Limited was invited by MPT to attend an awards dinner held at the Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester in recognition of their contribution to the success of the project as a whole. The evening was attended by Geotechnics’ Senior Engineer Lawrence Page and Engineer Katie Fothergill.

This was followed by an exercise in core logging, conducted by David Bracegirdle and Habib Ur Rehman, where the students produced their own logs of a sandstone sequence and compared them with those produced by Geotechnics’ own Geologists. Discontinuity logging proved a particular talking point as it recognised the dilemma in differentiating between naturally occurring and drilling-induced discontinuities, and whether this was interpretation, opinion or fact. Such experience will add to the understanding and interpretation of Borehole Records when presented in reports used to formulate designs and control construction in the students’ future careers.

We were delighted to hear from the Course Manager, Benoît Jones and course Director, Tony Price, “the feedback from the students was excellent with a very positive reception of what was conveyed and learnt. Len is a valued member of our Industrial Advisory panel for the Civil Engineering degrees and contributes a guest lecture each year on Ground Investigation techniques and reporting.”  

Geotechnics looks forward to continued involvement with the course in what must be one of the growing areas of construction as cities seek to maximise use of underground space for transport, water supply, sewage disposal and accommodation.

As part of our commitment to our ISO 9001 Quality Assurance Certification and to continuous improvements we are pleased to announce the findings of our recent Client Satisfaction Survey.

One hundred and thirty clients were asked to rate our performance in eight categories.  The number of  responses was significantly higher than in previous years, and the results were:

Responses to Tender Enquiry – 85% rated us good or very good

Site Management – 85% rated us good or very good

Site Work Quality – 85% rated us good or verygood

Professional Liaison – 85% rated us good or very good

Quality of Reports – 90% rated us good or very good

Speed of Report Production - 90% rated us good or very good

Programme Adherence – 85% rated us good or very good

Value for Money – 79% rated us good or very good

We also asked whether we understood your requirements/needs, 93% of respondents said that we met or exceed their needs and 95% said they would recommend us to others.  We received responses such as:

“report quality is excellent”

“good at working to strict deadlines”

“excellent technical knowledge”

Despite these excellent and pleasing results, we are aware that sometimes we don’t get it right, and we are taking steps to address one or two issues that have been raised.  Our response to how other people view our services is an important matter for us.

Thank you to all those who took the time to respond.

The purpose of Eurocodes is to standardise practice in the industry throughout Europe, and in many ways it is seen as embodying what is already considered to be good practice, with the consequence that designs should be based on more reliable data and hence be better and more efficient. However it needs to be recognised that the EC7 document is more prescriptive than BS5930 (1999).

The ground has resulted from a range of geological influences over geological time and has most recently been subject to Man’s activities – the so called Anthropocene. Hence, all data from investigations need to be viewed in context and with caution by experienced staff. Research has shown that, typically, tests are done on about a millionth of the soil affected by construction. There is a danger that simple adherence to components in the code may imply a precision in prediction which cannot be justified in this context.

Much interpretation of test data has come from empirical correlations between test results and behaviour of the actual foundations and hence re-calibration will be necessary in the context of the new codes and it may be years before the benefits are fully realised. For example on granular soils the Standard Penetration Test or SPT has been used in much published work but such work has not had the benefit of identifiable efficiency values for the equipment. The fact of calibration allows for this in the future and has already highlighted the importance of using well maintained equipment and improved test procedures.

In relation to cohesive soils there has been much debate on the use of only Class 1 samples in determining shear strength and compressibility. Such sampling has proved to be very difficult if not impossible within the context of conventional site investigations of glacial tills in Scotland for example. This also applies to other soils. Perhaps Eurocode 7- Geotechnical design Part 2, paragraph 3.4.3 provides the key to this where it recognises that mechanical disturbance and release of stress causes disturbance and that some soils are more sensitive than others. Each problem requires a different degree of accuracy and hence the experienced engineer needs to decide on the degree of disturbance that can be accepted.

Perhaps the way forward is to structure investigations in a series of phases as the code suggests rather than to undertake the investigation in a single hit. In this way the first phase can allow less sophisticated sampling to provide data on the general ground conditions and allow selection of the most appropriate technique for obtaining Class 1 samples of the soils that are critical to the geotechnical design in the second or third phases. Either way the costs of investigation are likely to increase, either as a result of damage to the much less robust and much more expensive sampling tubes and cutting shoes, or the need for additional time and mobilisation.

Even with increased costs, however, the value of Site Investigation as part of any project remains high. Research done many years ago indicated that the average cost of an investigation was on average approximately 0.21% of project costs. It therefore needs to be recognised that procurement strategies to minimise the costs of investigations have a minimal effect on project costs but are likely to result in disproportionate increases in risk. It might be argued that this can perhaps be compensated for by over-design but without adequate knowledge this cannot be quantified and is hardly the sustainable intelligent design which we would all aspire to.

Procurement and design strategies for Site Investigations therefore need to be re-considered and this is particularly so in the context of the new code. Particular account needs to be taken of the value of the experience of those structuring, undertaking and interpreting investigations.

The Ground Engineering Awards 2011 were announced this month, celebrating the finest geotechnical engineering projects from across the world.

Geotechnics Limited, P&S Consulting Engineers (PaSCoE), WM Longreach and Huesker were highly commended for their slope stabilisation project at Daniels Mill to the South of Bridgnorth in Shropshire which was entered in the category Geotechnical / Geoenvironmental UK Projects up to £1m .

Please see our May 2010 case study for further information about Daniels Mill. 

In order to comply with flood risk assessments, the site requires the importation of 300,000m3 of material to bring it up to level. Bringing the material in by road was not practical due to the volumes required and the likely disruption to the local residents. The solution is to deliver the imported fill to the site via a dredger and temporary pipeline structure operated by Westminster Dredging, bringing the material in by sea has prevented 30,000 lorry movements on local roads. Remote monitoring of settlement cells buried beneath the development area enable an unrestricted and continuous record of settlement readings as the site is filled, allowing Geotechnics to continually assess the reaction of the ground to the additional loads.

Seaton Panorama  – image provided by Ian Thomas.

Geotechnics limited has again managed to demonstrate continuous improvement in the key areas of safety, quality and environmental performance.

The latest UVDB Achilles Verify audit held in March 2011 scored higher than last year with results of 96.4% for safety, 95.1% for quality and 96.4% for environment.

UVDB Verify is the UK Utility Industry’s scheme to assess and verify supplier capability in the areas of Health & Safety, Environment and Quality and is now recognised as the standard for supplier pre-qualification within this sector.

Geotechnics scores are all 10-15% above average values for suppliers registered under the scheme, clearly demonstrating that the company is committed to the higher standards.

If you would like to see this level of capability and comittment as part of your project, please contact us to discuss yor requirements.