London Gateway Deep-Water Port Development
London Gateway is a development on the north bank of the River Thames in Essex.
Summary of works
Client: DP World
Contract name: London Gateway
Start Date: April 2013
Completion Date: December 2014
Monitoring System: Vibrating Wire Piezometers, Magnetic Extensometers, Inclinometers, Settlement Plates
Case Study
Project Details
It consists of a deep-water port development that is designed to handle the world’s biggest container ships, as well as Europe’s largest logistics park, providing access to road and rail links to the rest of the UK.
Much of the 230 hectare site is founded on reclaimed or soft ground, so a significant amount of geotechnical monitoring was required to ensure that fill material was sufficiently well compacted prior to construction of buildings or infrastructure.
To validate this, ITM Monitoring, now SOCOTEC Monitoring UK Ltd, was contracted by the client to install arrays of magnetic extensometers to record settlement, and vibrating wire piezometers to measure dissipation of pore water pressures.
It consists of a deep-water port development that is designed to handle the world’s biggest container ships, as well as Europe’s largest logistics park, providing access to road and rail links to the rest of the UK.
Much of the 230 hectare site is founded on reclaimed or soft ground, so a significant amount of geotechnical monitoring was required to ensure that fill material was sufficiently well compacted prior to construction of buildings or infrastructure.
To validate this, ITM Monitoring, now SOCOTEC Monitoring UK Ltd, was contracted by the client to install arrays of magnetic extensometers to record settlement, and vibrating wire piezometers to measure dissipation of pore water pressures.
The works involved drilling 97 boreholes up to 35m deep with the supply and installation of 92 vibrating wire piezometers, 2 inclinometers and 34 magnetic extensometers, as well as the supply of 118 settlement plates.
Given the sensor spacing across the vast site, the non-safety-critical nature of the work and type of instruments used, all data was recorded and reported manually by ITM Monitoring engineers.
The project saw the successful installation of all the required systems across the site, with the completion of the project in December 2014.
