6/9/2013

Young People Session

18SEAGC-1AGSSEA

Optimizing Ground Investigation Expenditure by

Staged Approach

Jason Ng
Geotechnical Engineering Graduate
Housing Department of HKSAR
28 May 2013
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Optimizing Ground Investigation Expenditure by Staged Approach CONTENT

CONTENT

• Need of Ground Investigation

• Procedure of Staged Approach

• Case Studies

• Concluding
C l di remarks
k

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Optimizing Ground Investigation Expenditure by Staged Approach

Need of Ground Investigation

• Before Construction, good

practice to have 100 %
anticipation of geology

• Sufficient desk study and

walk over

• Ground Investigations
in Stages
t update
to d t andd obtain
bt i
information to complete
Site Investigation

Surface Studies + Ground Investigation

(Fookes, 1997) 3

Optimizing Ground Investigation Expenditure by Staged Approach Procedure of Staged Approach

Project Programme

Development Detailed Design &

Scheme Design Stage Construction Stage
y Stage
Feasibility g p
Specification Stage
g

Development Foundation Type

Details of Foundation
Layout &
for construction
Founding Levels

Ground Investigation in Stages

Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3

Preliminary GI Main GI Pre-construction GI
(Qualitative) (Quantitative) (Verification)

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Optimizing Ground Investigation Expenditure by Staged Approach Staged Approach

Stage 1

• Covering entire site footprint,

along boundary

• Locations without existing GI

records

• Grid Approach to grasp overview

Optimizing Ground Investigation Expenditure by Staged Approach Staged Approach

Stage 2

• With development layout, boreholes planned within building block locations

• Quantify extent of adverse features

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Optimizing Ground Investigation Expenditure by Staged Approach Staged Approach

Stage 3

• More specific
• Boreholes planned at locations of bored piles
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• Verifying the depth of rock stratum

Optimizing Ground Investigation Expenditure by Staged Approach Case Studies

Project 1

Block 2

- 3 Building
B ildi Blocks
Bl k supported
t d by
b
50 bored piles
Block 1
- ~100 nos. of boreholes in 3
stages

- This as-built rockhead contour

used as reference for comparison

Block 3

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Optimizing Ground Investigation Expenditure by Staged Approach Case Studies

• Staged Approach requires engineer’s planning
• While another extreme is the Grid approach which requires very limited engineer’s planning
• Comparison between the two approaches
Generate
Staged Approach Contour Grid Approach Contour
30 m

• Virtual boreholes equally • Generate Contour using • “30 m Grid” Contour

- spaced to form Grid extracted rockhead levels

• Extract Rockhead levels from

as-built contour at locations of
virtual boreholes
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Optimizing Ground Investigation Expenditure by Staged Approach Case Studies

Staged Approach Contour Generate Total Grid Approach Contours

30 m Grid 20 m Grid

• Finer the grid, more similar they look like

10 m Grid 5 m Grid
• Different Contours from the 2 approaches 10
• Compare the founding levels of the bored piles

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Optimizing Ground Investigation Expenditure by Staged Approach Case Studies

100% (To the reference contour) Multi-Staged Approach (~100

(109 nos.)
nos.) Grid Approach (~1000 nos.)
100 8
% of Similarity of Rockhhead Level 5 m Grid (728 nos.) 7
99 6.7%
~7%
~99% 6

98 5

% of P
4
97 3

10 m Grid 2
96 20 m Grid (182 nos.)
30 m Grid (20 nos.) (42 nos.) 1
0.2%
95 0
1 10 100 1000 10000
Drillhole Number

• In comparison, Grid Approach requires 10 times more no. of boreholes than Staged Approach

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Optimizing Ground Investigation Expenditure by Staged Approach Concluding Remarks

• Without engineer’s planning, Grid Approach required many more

boreholes
b h l thanth Staged
St d A Approachh tto achieve
hi the same quality
th lit off
rockhead contour

• With proper planning, Staged Approach has been proved to optimize

the expenditure by saving significant amount of boreholes

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Optimizing Ground Investigation Expenditure by Staged Approach Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments:

• Nomination from HKGES

• Sponsorship from HKIE GD Division

Thank you
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Optimizing Ground Investigation Expenditure by Staged Approach Q&A

Questions?
or
Discussions?

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Optimizing Ground Investigation Expenditure by Staged Approach Case Studies

• 3 completed public housing projects to show how GI expenditure could be optimized

• Simple geometry and geology
• Bored piles (rockhead contour for design)
• Ground Investigation done by Staged Approach

Project 1

Project 2

Project 3

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Optimizing Ground Investigation Expenditure by Staged Approach Case Studies (Project 1)

Project 1 Project 1*

Block 2 Block 2

Block 1 Block 1

Block 3 Block 3

• 10 m wide Deep Weathering Zone

• Rockhead level significantly deepened (80m)

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Optimizing Ground Investigation Expenditure by Staged Approach Case Studies

10m 5m
100 20m 8
30m
Project 1
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% of Simiilarity of Rockhead Level

94%
• With deep weathering, 90
5m
6
20m
more significant difference 10m

% of P
5

80 4
30m
• 5 m Grid gives relatively 75% 3

lower similarity for the Project 1*

70 2
(Deep weathering)
deep weathering case 1

60 0
1 10 100 1000 10000
Drillhole Number
x 100 nos.
x 10 nos.
100 8
Multi-Staged line
% of Similarity of Rockheead Level 7

90 6
• Similar Results for
Project 1* and Project 2* 5

% of P
80 4

• Bigger difference for 3

Project 1*
Project 3 (Large site) 70
Project 3*
2
Project 2* 1

60 0
1 10 100 1000 10000
Drillhole Number
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Optimizing Ground Investigation Expenditure by Staged Approach Case Studies (Project 1)

Multi- Staged Total Grid Approach

Depends on
Boreholes Spacing
planning
l i
30 m 20m 10m 5m

Boreholes Number 109 20 42 182 728

% of to Planned
1 0.2 0.4 1.7 6.7
Total Expenditure (P)

Similarity to as-built
Rockhead Level
100% Finer the Grid, Higher the Similarity

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