Golder Retained as Geotechnical Advisor on Hong Kong International Airport Project

Ground improvement work at Hong Kong International Airport in November of 2020

Global engineering and environmental consulting firm Golder has been retained by the Hong Kong Airport Authority to be their geotechnical engineering advisor for the construction phase of the Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) expansion project. The project requires the reclamation of 650 hectares (~1,600 acres) of land north of the existing airport island. Golder has been involved in providing geotechnical engineering advice, review, and optimization since 2011. Their most recent work involved optimization of the deep cement mixing (DCM) column ground improvement to mitigate excessive settlement caused by marine deposits.

A deep cement mixing (DCM) technique was applied across the reclamation area. Cement was injected and mixed through the contaminated mud to create cement clusters to support the seawall and the newly reclaimed land. Each cluster comprises four overlapping columns, approximately 1.2 m in diameter and between 20 and 40 m long. With approximately 250 000 cement clusters, this is the world’s largest DCM project.

“We were able to safely optimise the DCM works, saving vast volumes of cement, greatly improving the project’s sustainability, and also shortening the amount of drilling time required, reducing project costs.”

Golder will continue to interpret instrumentation and monitoring data, including from movement sensors at the seabed level and load cells that were buried in the ground before the reclamation.

Visit Golder.com for more about Golder’s role this amazing mega project.

[Editor] GeoPrac.net President, Randy Post, is also an employee of Golder. The views expressed on this website are his own and do not represent those of Golder. [/Editor]