The Skanska, Costain, Strabag (SCS) joint venture team delivering the High Speed 2 contract in north London supported by our in-house design engineers took a production thinking approach to design an improved temporary access road.
This modular block solution is made up of 700 expanded polystyrene blocks, which provide great compressive strength with little weight, allowing for easy installation. This reduces the impact on the adjacent masonry wall forming part of the existing rail infrastructure on the site, as well as benefiting local residents and operatives by minimising the noise and dust associated with the works.
This approach saved over 2,000 tonnes of granular material, which in turn resulted in reduced noise, dust and hand arm vibration associated with the compaction works. The ramp was capped with precast concrete retaining sections and road slabs and the whole structure came in at less than a quarter of the granular equivalent.
The ramp was sustainably designed to be easily and rapidly deconstructed after decommissioning to allow for the potential reuse of the slabs and blocks through a digital track and trace. They are also 100% recyclable if they cannot be reused after the project is completed. Decommissioning of the slabs has also been planned to minimise dust and noise through the education of site teams on the correct handling of materials for higher reuse potential. Overall, this solution is estimated to save over 350tCO2e through its lifecycle on this project.