Alternative Foundations Solution Results in
Cost and Time Savings as well as Reducing Impact in a Live Airport Environment

Paul Harding, Design Manager with the VINCI Construction UK Air division, has come up with an alternative solution for the foundation requirements at Heathrow’s Terminal 3 Flight Connections Centre (FCC) project.

The project is extremely complex due to the location and constraints imposed by the existing buried services, the live operations and interfacing projects.

The original design required excavating to expose the existing foundations to a depth of approximately 3m. Paul has led the design team to deliver a solution which avoids such deep excavations.

The solution, now approved by the Technical Leadership and other required parties, is to overstress the foundations (within acceptable and constrained limits) and to jack the structure to compensate the anticipated additional settlement. This requires excavating down to the top of the foundations (less than 1m) to enable installation of a jacking system.

In addition to reducing the impact of excavations in a live operational airport environment, the solution has also resulted in significant cost and time savings.

Published: 26/07/2010