Abstract One of the Canterbury Earthquake Royal Commission recommendations was that “ground improvement should be considered as part of the foundation system of a building and reliability factors included in the design procedures” and that “the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment should consider the…
The new Gisborne Police Station building was built on a soft site occupied by a historical retail building. The façade of the historical building had to be retained, and the building demolished. Based on complex geotechnical investigations and consideration of various foundation options, Opus recommended that a piled…
Abstract It is recognised that earthquake design of high cut slopes in hilly to mountainous terrain is important to ensure that the next generation of transportation routes have adequate resilience to provide access to communities following an earthquake event. There is very little guidance in…
Abstract Assessment and mitigation of potential liquefaction is a critical requirement for successful infrastructure design in seismically active regions of New Zealand. This paper highlights several important lessons learnt from the design and construction of ground improvements to mitigate the effects of liquefaction on the…
Abstract Acid Sulphate Soils have recently been encountered on projects in Whangarei and Auckland. These naturally occurring soils are rich in sulphide minerals that have the potential to cause changes in soil and water chemistry when they oxidise. This oxidation process occurs naturally but may…
Abstract Water ingress into a mined tunnel can be an issue – not just for construction but also for depressurisation and the potential consequential surface settlement. The Waterview Connection in Auckland has twin ~14.5m diameter TBM tunnels linked by 16 mined cross passages. Each cross…
Abstract Accurate, high-resolution topographic models are fundamentally important for detailed engineering geological mapping. Nevertheless, high economic costs of topographic data collection are often exacerbated by remoteness of field sites, rendering cheaper, more portable surveying platforms (i.e. terrestrial laser scanning or GPS) impractical. An alternative is…
Abstract Recently, there is significant increase in globalisation in industrial areas especially in developed countries. Thus, their waste by-products become a major challenge because of the large quantities involved and the scarcity of disposal space. Industrial waste by-products and the use of traditional cementitious binders…
Abstract Polystyrene injected concrete (PIC) is a type of lightweight concrete that internationally has a number of different applications, ranging from thermal insulation to shallow ground improvement (PIC Raft). Due to the lightweight character of this material, several benefits arise from its use in buildings…
Abstract The CPT is used extensively for site characterization, soil profiling, determination of groundwater conditions and the estimation of geotechnical parameters. The geotechnical parameters that can be estimated by using the CPT include bulk unit weight, shear strength and stiffness, among many others. Best practice…