Ground investigation for Thames Tideway Tunnel project in London, UK

KEY INFORMATION

Project name: Thames Tideway Project
Date: 2017
Length: Project completion expected in 2024
Client: CVB joint venture (Costain, VINCI Construction Grands Projects and Bachy Soletanche)
Location: East London, UK

PROJECT SUMMARY

SOCOTEC provided CVB with ground investigation services at five infrastructure sites to support work on the eastern section of the Thames Tideway Tunnel project. The UK water industry’s biggest ever infrastructure project, this super sewer tunnel will be 25km long and located 65m below the surface.

PROJECT DETAILS

SOCOTEC supported CVB in identifying optimal construction solutions at the site of the Chambers Wharf shaft – a key part of the infrastructure project.

Partially located on recently cleared brownfield land as well as on the adjacent river foreshore, the site potentially featured a range of soil strata and surface deposit types, as well as buried structures. To understand ground conditions prior to construction, SOCOTEC provided a team of ground investigation experts that undertook fast and accurate core drilling services, in-situ testing and laboratory analysis.

Of particular importance to CVB was the drilling of 100m deep chalk boreholes in order to identify deep chalk fissures to inform its design. The chalk cores were drilled using SOCOTEC’s drilling rigs. Throughout the project, SOCOTEC worked closely with both CVB and its designer, Mott MacDonald, to relay the findings of its core analysis in real time. In doing so, both organisations were able to work together to devise and undertake additional tests or deploy new testing methodologies that provided CVB with the required knowledge about the nature of the ground beneath the infrastructure site.