Newsletter Issue 2 Summer 2014

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1 Providing efficient and reliable geotechnical solutions for the most challenging projects Newsletter Issue 2 Summer 2014 In this Issue: CEDR REGEN RAMPION WIND FARM NATIONAL GALLERY OF IRELAND Welcome to the second edition of GDG Newsletter Welcome : Welcome to the second edition of the GDG quarterly newsletter. Inside you will find information about our ongoing projects and will get an introduction to some of our most recent project awards. Enjoy! About GDG: Gavin and Doherty Geosolutions (GDG) is a specialist geotechnical engineering consultancy, providing innovative geotechnical solutions to a broad range of engineering problems. GDG provides engineering services to the international market, including concept design, detailed design, in-situ monitoring and general geotechnical advice. GDG has developed from a strong background in geomechanics and applied geotechnical research. Through application of these skills, we offer progressive and reliable geotechnical designs across a range of industry problems. We are actively involved in a diverse range of international projects ranging from major civil infrastructure projects, harbours/marinas, offshore oil/gas fields, onshore and offshore windfarms, and commercial structures. Our clients include large civil and building contractors, project developers and engineering consulting firms. Starting at initial concept design and continuing to project completion, GDG provides professional consultancy services and value engineering on a diverse range of projects. Paul Doherty, Managing Director CONTENTS: Ongoing projects - Leanwind - C & E Decision Support Tool - Infrarisk New Projects - Rampion Offshore Wind Farm - The National Gallery of Ireland European Collaborative Projects - CEDR RE-GEN - RAIN - COST General News - New GDG office - New Staff Appointment - ISO Certification - Geosciences Ireland Membership

2 Project #1: Leanwind LEANWIND is an FP7 funded project that is conducted in collaboration with academic and industrial partners from across Europe. Recent trends in the wind energy industry have shown a progression towards developing wind farms further offshore, in deeper water sites, and with higher capacity turbines, which impose stronger demands on the turbine support structures. GDG are leaders of the LEANWIND Work Package 2(WP2): Construction, Deployment and Installation. This work package aims at performing a systematic investigation of the novel foundation concepts and evaluating their efficiency and limits in response to the challenging industry requirements that are expected in the near future. Currently, the WP2 partners are investigating three distinct tasks in parallel, (i) Gravity base foundations, (ii) Bottom-fixed steel substructures and (iii) the floating foundation concepts. Each concept will be designed and its efficiency evaluated in various site conditions (6 different combinations of water depth and soil profiles) to determine the most economic concept corresponding to a specific set of site constraints. At the final stage of the LEANWIND project, a decision support tool will be developed to aid developers and designers in selecting the most efficient substructure option based on the specific requirements of an individual project. Project #2: Cutting & Embankment Decision Support Tool Uniform risk modelling will replace subjective visual assessment This project aims to develop a risk assessment model and a decision support tool for the geotechnical assets on the Irish rail network. Work on this project commenced in January 2014, and Phase 1 is currently well underway, which involves developing a detailed database of asset attributes for over 3000 railway slopes. calculation model is being developed to calculate the probability of failure, which is dependent on a variety of model inputs including LiDAR survey data, GIS soil maps and ortho imagery. The final goal of the project is to develop a decision support tool in conjunction with an integrated risk modelling slope stability software. A probabilistic geotechnical slope stability 2

3 EU Collaborative Project: RE-GEN RE-GEN, a transnational road research project, powered by the Conference on European Road of Directors (CEDR) kicked-off in Dublin in late May this year. The Risk Assessment in Ageing Infrastructure (RE-GEN) project will investigate ageing, aggressive environmental conditions and natural hazards which are the causes of progressive degradation of already ageing infrastructure. The core RE-GEN objective is to provide Road Owners/Managers with best practice tools and methodologies for risk assessment of critical infrastructure elements concentrating on; bridges, steep slopes and high retaining walls. GDG is the leader on the work package which addresses modelling vulnerability considering climate change. New Project: Rampion Wind Farm The Rampion Offshore Wind Farm site is located off the South coast of England and is being developed by E.ON Climate and Renewables. The wind farm consists of over 100 turbines and has the potential to deliver 700MW of electricity when completed. GDG have been commissioned to undertake the detailed geotechnical interpretation for the turbine monopile locations. GDG are currently establishing geotechnical design parameters, identifying foundation design issues and supporting LicEnergy with monopile optimisation. Project #3: FP7 Infrarisk The Novel indicators for identifying critical INFRAstructure at RISK from natural hazards is an international research project awarded for funding by the European Commission in November The scope of work focuses on developing reliable stress tests for European critical transport infrastructure (TEN-T network) which will lead to higher infrastructure networks resilience to extreme low probability high impact events. GDG s scope of work lies in developing innovative hazard, vulnerability, and both single and multiple risk assessment models for landslide natural hazards on TEN-T s critical geotechnical assets. That includes creating knowledge databases, designing new types of fragility curves and calculating the impact and damage of specific actions on infrastructure elements. Rail and road core TEN- T corridors analysed 3

4 EU Collaborative Project: COST COST Action TU 1202: Impact of climate change on engineered slopes for infrastructure There is an urgent need to assess the risks posed by climate change on our already ageing infrastructure and to plan adaptations that will both increase safety and reduce the cost of repairs. Engineered slopes (cuttings, embankments, flood defences) are a critical component of this infrastructure. The aim of the project is to develop a coalition of researchers and asset managers equipped to address the challenges of engineered slope infrastructure resilience and adaptation to climate change. This group develops collective understanding; shares techniques, facilities and data ; and works jointly in disseminating results across the EU and to asset owners. GDG is leading Working Group 4 (Hazard/Risk). This WG will apply risk based analyses to geotechnical asset failures which is crucial to efficient and effective asset management by stakeholders. WG4 also explores methods to analyse and communicate slope stability risk to stakeholders and infrastructure users. EU Collaborative Project: RAIN Late May was a busy month for the research engineers in GDG who were involved in a kick-off meeting for another European Seventh Framework Project (FP7). RAIN is an acronym for Risk Analysis of Infrastructure Network in response to extreme weather. This project aims to provide an operational analysis framework that identifies critical infrastructure components impacted by extreme weather and minimise the impact of these events on the EU infrastructure network. GDG s role as a work package leader is to develop remediation techniques and examine post event resilience. The outputs of the project will result in enhanced safety and reliability of critical infrastructure networks in the case of major weather induced disruptions and will address European policy in the areas of safety security, intermodality and emergency response planning tool. Figure: Examples of road failures due to weather related events 4

5 New Project: National Gallery of Ireland An additional basement level is to be constructed beneath the National Gallery on Merrion square in Dublin. The construction work includes underpinning the existing loadbearing walls of the building to facilitate the construction of a new subterranean plant room below the building and the construction of a new energy centre which will front onto Merrion Square. As part of this work, concrete underpins are to be constructed using a sequential series of excavations, concreting and dry-packing. The National Gallery Building is a structure of significant importance and therefore the allowable settlements of the building during underpinning had a tight tolerance. GDG were commissioned to undertake a finite element analysis to determine the magnitude of the settlements during construction of the underpins. Both the long-term settlement following completion of the underpinning and the incremental settlements due to the staged nature of the underpin panels were assessed using a 3D finite element analysis, which was calibrated using geophysics and intrusive geotechnical investigation data.. OFFICE NEWS ISO Certification GDG has been certified by the NSAI in the standards ISO 9001:2008 Quality, ISO 14001: 2004 Environment and ISO 18001: 2007 Health & Safety. Our commitment is to continue improving in order to provide the highest standard services to our clients. Geoscience Ireland GDG has recently become a partner in Geoscience Ireland. This corporation is an integrated natural resources organisation, bringing expertise in water, minerals, and infrastructure to global clients. Geoscience Ireland comprises Ireland s leading geoscientists and GDG is proud to be a member. 5

6 New GDG Office We are delighted to announce that GDG has moved to a new and larger premises! The new office is located in Beech Hill Office Campus in Clonskeagh and will provide additional space and facilities to continue delivering the best services to our clients. Recruitment GDG are currently seeking engineers interested in working in a dynamic range of geotechnical, civil, and offshore projects. Please contact info@gdgeo.com for additional information. OFFICE NEWS Staff Profile We are happy to welcome our latest addition to the design team, Matilda Djidara, M.Eng. Matilda is a senior engineer with more than 6 years of experience in a broad range of building and infrastructure projects in the Republic of Croatia, mainly focusing on deep supported excavations in urban areas, site investigation and slope stability. Student internship GDG recently hosted students from the University of Salerno and the University of Twente who completed industrial placements in our Dublin office as part of their bachelors thesis. GDG Quarterly Team Building Exercise! GDG team enjoyed a Friday afternoon karting and showing their driving skills. Guess who won! Unit 1B, Parkview House, Beech Hill Office Campus, Clonskeagh, Dublin 4, Ireland info@gdgeo.com