CALGARY GEOTECHNICAL SOCIETY

2007/2008 LECTURE SERIES

 

Date:    Tuesday March 4, 2008

 

Place:   Austrian Canadian Cultural Centre, 3112 - 11 Street NE, Calgary

 

Time:    5:30 to 6:00 pm - Cash Bar

            6:00 to 7:00 pm Lecture

 

Speaker:           Dr. Bengt H. Fellenius, Ph.D., P.Eng.

                        Bengt Fellenius Consultants

 

Topic:               Foundation Design and Test Results for the New International Airport in Bangkok, Thailand

                       

 

Abstract:

The Suvarnabhhumi airport, the new international airport in Bangkok, Thailand, covers an area of 8 km by 4 km (8,000 acres) in a former swamp, a flat marine delta about 30 km south of Bangkok.  The soil profile consists of a thin weathered crust on typical soft to stiff, compressible Bangkok clay deposited on a sand layer at a depth of about 25 m extending to about 47 m. Below the sand lies an about 10 m thick layer of hard silty clay followed by very dense sand to great depth.

 

Most of the area is devoted to runways, roadways, and parking, which required extensive ground improvement to minimize settlement. The structures consist of several units sharing footprints: terminal building, concourse, trellis structure, parking garage, and elevated roadways, which are founded on three types of piles installed to the sand below the clay layer, 1,000mm bored pile, 600mm diameter bored piles, and 600mm driven cylinder piles. A total of 25,000+ piles were installed. The stress-bulbs from the various foundations overlap, resulting in a complicated settlement analysis. The design of the airport started in 1995 and construction was completed in 2005 at a total cost of close to US$30 billion.

 

The lecture will present aspects of the soil improvement work, analysis of results from pile tests, and the design of the piled foundations for capacity, settlement, and downdrag.

 

About the Speaker:

Dr. Bengt H. Fellenius, formerly Professor of Civil Engineering at the University Of Ottawa, is an internationally recognized foundation engineering consultant and the author of more than 250 technical papers. His professional experience comes from a wide variety of assignments that encompass foundation design for industrial plants, water and sewage treatment facilities, bridges and highway projects, marine structures, and urban area development, as well as participation in special investigations, instrumented field tests, etc. Dr. Fellenius has given lectures and courses to several universities and international conferences throughout America, Europe, and South-East Asia.  He currently lives in Calgary.