Bachy Soletanche completes substantial piling works at St George
Wharf
 Ground engineering specialist, Bachy
Soletanche Limited (BSL) has recently demonstrated its
extensive geotechnical capabilities at the attractive
residential development, St George Wharf in Vauxhall.
The £1.6M piling project was for the final block –
Aquarius Building – and required 10 Large Diameter Auger
(LDA) piles with diameters between 1,800mm and 2,400mm
which were drilled to a massive depth of 60m.
For an area that was never really ‘the place to be
seen’, Vauxhall has certainly transformed itself in
recent years. The area became particularly popular when
St George announced its plans for St George Wharf – the
high-profile development only 275m from the water’s
edge. Since then, the development has proved to be a
great living location for city centre residents, which
is why there is much anticipation for the final block to
complete later in the year.
BSL was awarded the sub-contract by John Reddington
Limited to conduct the foundations project. It was
recommended that a piling strategy should be put in
place to increase the ground’s load bearing capacity by
between 11,000kN and 45,500kN.
The site is surrounded by buildings, main roads, the
River Thames and Vauxhall Bridge which all proved to be
vital considerations in the piling solution. Moreover,
the Victoria tube line runs directly underneath the
site. Consequently, BSL created an innovative piling
solution to get the maximum load bearing capacities
within the site’s constraints.
The 10 LDA piles were constructed using an extremely
high torque Bauer BG-40 rig. Vijay Pookat, the Bachy
Soletanche Limited Engineer on site commented:
“In normal circumstances we would construct several LDA
piles using smaller diameters and lengths. Due to the
underground tunnel running across the site, this just
wasn’t plausible so we substituted the volume of piles
with extra depth and diameter in just 10 piles.”
These massive piles are installed by drilling down to
the depth using the LDA Rotary process with an extra
long ‘Kelly’ bar to provide an extra long pile length.
The temporary casing were then installed followed by the
permanent casing. Once these were in, grout was injected
into the annulus (the gap between the temporary and
permanent casings) ready for the concrete to be poured
within the permanent casing.
The de-bonded permanent casings were a requirement to
prevent load transfer into the underground tunnels and
escalator shafts. They were also used to cut off the
ground water which is naturally high on this site. The
casings are also suitable for the ground strata which
includes 10m of made ground, London Clay, layers of
Lambeth sands, clay, and then Thanet sands. The
permanent casings were between 14.9m and 21.5m in length
which took them down below the tunnel level and made
them extremely heavy.
It was their sheer weight which meant that the annulus
between the permanent casing and temporary casing had to
be grouted. The grout also kept the permanent casings
vertical, which was extremely important due to the
depths in which these piles are installed. Vijay
continued:
“Working with piles at such depths, the slightest of
movement can cause the piles to go off line. If this
occurs, the pile is deemed ineffective.”
For that reason, BSL spent a lot of time carefully
installing the piles, taking a week to complete each
pile – a testament to their enormity.
Due to the underground obstructions, the piles have been
specially placed in order to successfully carry the
correct load. Vijay Pookat explained:
“The piles to the south and east of the site were
extremely important as these piles fell in line with the
Victoria tube line. Boring piles very close to and
between these tunnels required complete accuracy. There
was a huge risk of damage to the tunnels if the work had
not been completed correctly.
Consequently the piles required larger diameters and
longer permanent casings to stop the piles (and
eventually the structure) causing any settlement which
could have damaged to the tunnels in the future.”
With the underground tunnels being so close to the
piling works, engineers on site used a monitoring system
in order to detect any movement or vibration that may
affect the tube lines. In fact, St George continually
measured the deflection of the escalator shaft within
the Vauxhall station complex during the piling works. If
this had moved more than 2mm, the escalators would have
jammed, stopping the works on site immediately. There
was also a risk of noise and vibration from the piling
operations being heard in the station tunnels by
passengers, so it was important that these were kept to
a minimum.
Tony Pressley, construction director at St George South
London commented:
“Overall, these risks were managed using expert Ground
Movement Engineers to advise St George and London
Underground engineers. For each stage of works, very
detailed Method Statements had to be submitted to London
Underground which required extensive discussions between
BSL, Reddingtons, St George, GCG and London Underground.
St George set these processes in place and facilitated
the coming together of all parties to ensure a
successful outcome.”
BSL began working on site in October 2007 and completed
in January 2008. Works are now continuing to complete
the St George Wharf, Aquarius Building later in the
year. The building is the final addition to the St
George Wharf development and includes one and two
bedroom apartments.
Email:
fiona@manifestcomms.co.uk
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