Geomechanics.io

Vattenfall has appointed Natural Power to deliver comprehensive ground investigations for its planned 100MW Qurack and 90MW Quantans Hill onshore wind farms in Scotland, extending a 15‑year collaboration. Natural Power’s construction and geotechnical teams will deploy specialist site investigation techniques and advanced survey technologies to characterise geotechnical, geological and environmental conditions across both sites. The data will feed directly into turbine foundation design, access road alignment and construction risk reduction, giving Vattenfall higher confidence in earthworks, drainage and infrastructure layouts before detailed design and procurement.

Extensive ground engineering works are under way on the West of Leeds section of the Transpennine Route Upgrade to manage legacy risks from historic industrial activity beneath and adjacent to the railway. Contractors are deploying a mix of ground investigation, grouting, soil stabilisation and structural retaining solutions to deal with old mine workings, made ground and buried obstructions that could compromise track formation and structures. The interventions aim to secure long-term track geometry, reduce differential settlement and maintain line availability during and after capacity and electrification upgrades.

Ground investigation techniques typically used for highways and foundations have been deployed in a 1960s missing person cold case, with RSK geophysicists leading the subsurface search. The team is combining ground-penetrating radar (GPR) with intrusive investigation methods such as boreholes or trial pits to characterise stratigraphy and detect potential burial anomalies. The work shows how standard site investigation tools can be adapted for forensic applications, including in constrained or previously disturbed ground.

Coates has expanded its engineered dewatering capability with a new fleet of electric BBA Pumps, including PT200 D265 (8″/200mm), PT150 D185 (6″/150mm) and PT100 D130 (4″/100mm) units for urban construction sites. The electric configuration targets groundwater control on projects from small residential excavations to complex basements, water assets and civil infrastructure in dense urban areas where diesel emissions, noise and access constraints are critical. For geotechnical and civil contractors, the range allows closer-to-face installation and longer runtimes on grid power, simplifying dewatering design and temporary works planning.

The Observational Method in ground engineering is regaining interest as major infrastructure schemes look to manage geotechnical uncertainty in real time rather than rely solely on conservative design factors. Engineers are revisiting staged construction with predefined trigger levels, instrumented slopes and retaining walls, and adaptive support measures, but uptake remains patchy due to contractual risk allocation, programme pressures, and limited monitoring budgets. Wider use could cut unnecessary pile lengths, excavation support thicknesses and contingency allowances, provided clients accept flexible design envelopes and robust monitoring–response plans.

Newport City Council has issued a £2.7M procurement for a solar farm and battery energy storage system at the capped Docks Way Landfill Site in Newport, South Wales, aiming to convert the former waste facility into a grid-connected renewable energy asset. The design-and-build contract will need to address foundation detailing on landfill cover, settlement behaviour and gas management, as well as integrating the BESS with local distribution network constraints. Civil and geotechnical bidders will be expected to manage construction over waste, including differential settlement and leachate control.

Balfour Beatty Ground Engineering, VSL Systems (UK) and Bachy Soletanche have formed a dedicated Geotechnical Sub-Alliance for the Sizewell C nuclear project, in what is believed to be a first-of-its-kind delivery model on a UK megaproject. The alliance is expected to coordinate complex ground engineering packages for the twin EPR units, including deep foundations, retaining structures and heavy temporary works for major nuclear island and marine structures. For contractors and designers, the move signals tighter integration of design–build geotechnical risk management on a highly regulated, coastal, soft-ground site.

Laing O’Rourke has appointed Clare Rodgers as head of Expanded Geotechnical, making her the first female business unit leader across any of the contractor’s specialist trading businesses. Rodgers moves from Select, where she was lifting solutions leader responsible for complex crane and heavy lifting strategies, bringing temporary works and lifting logistics expertise directly into the ground engineering unit. She succeeds Ronan O’Rourke, who becomes director of clients and markets for Laing O’Rourke’s Europe Hub, signalling closer alignment between geotechnical delivery and major project clients.

Balfour Beatty Ground Engineering, VSL Systems (UK) and Bachy Soletanche will jointly deliver major geotechnical works for the Sizewell C nuclear project, covering piling, soil mixing, diaphragm walls and plastic cut-off walls. The package will form key below-ground containment and support structures for the twin EPR units, where groundwater control and long-term settlement performance are critical on the Suffolk coast. The collaboration signals early locking-in of specialist contractors for complex deep-foundation and seepage-control systems on one of the UK’s largest current infrastructure schemes.

An updated “higher confidence model” from the British Geological Survey refines estimates of superficial deposit thickness above Great Britain’s bedrock, giving engineers improved depth-to-rock data for foundations, earthworks and buried infrastructure. The model integrates existing BGS geological mapping with borehole records and geophysical datasets to reduce uncertainty in areas with complex drift sequences and variable till or alluvium cover. Practitioners can use the outputs to optimise preliminary ground investigation targeting, refine early-stage design assumptions and better screen geohazard susceptibility at corridor and site scale.

Publication by the British Geological Survey of final borehole data packs and a full drilling report from the UK Geoenergy Observatory in Cheshire provides open access to high‑resolution geological, hydrogeological and geophysical logs for the Sherwood Sandstone aquifer. The dataset covers multiple cored and instrumented boreholes with continuous wireline logging, groundwater monitoring and core descriptions, giving engineers direct parameters for permeability, stratigraphy and faulting. Geotechnical, geothermal and energy‑storage designers can now calibrate numerical models, assess thermal and hydraulic behaviour, and de‑risk subsurface infrastructure in similar Triassic sandstone settings.

Georgia Tech’s Geosystems group has released high‑resolution digital scans of Prof George F. Sowers’ handwritten Harvard course notes from the late 1940s, capturing original lectures by Karl Terzaghi and Arthur Casagrande on topics such as effective stress, consolidation and stability analysis. The archive, drawn from Sowers’ time as a graduate student, preserves worked examples, early design charts and problem sets that pre‑date many modern textbooks. Practitioners gain direct access to primary teaching material from the formative period of modern soil mechanics for reference, teaching and historical comparison.

New British Geological Survey mapping of the upper 2m of seabed across the UK North Sea shows highly variable near-surface geology, challenging assumptions of relatively uniform sands used in many cable burial designs. The work identifies rapid lateral changes between sands, gravels, soft sediments and lag deposits at scales relevant to ploughs and jetting tools, with implications for trench stability, target burial depths and pull-out resistance for subsea power and telecoms cables. Designers may need denser geophysical and geotechnical sampling and more adaptable burial equipment specifications.

Helical piles and anchors are presented as displacement deep foundations whose performance depends on correctly specifying helix geometry (diameter, pitch, spacing), shaft type (solid square vs hollow round), and corrosion protection for the design life. The guide stresses matching installation torque to required axial capacity, using torque correlation factors (Kt) appropriate to soil type, and defining minimum embedment depth and number of helices rather than leaving these to contractors. Engineers are urged to state load cases (tension, compression, lateral), serviceability criteria, and testing requirements such as proof and pre-production load tests.

Contractors McIlwain Civil Engineering and SEE Civil Joint Venture have secured the next stage of early works for Queensland’s Mooloolah River Interchange, a key connection for the Sunshine Motorway and Nicklin Way on the Sunshine Coast. The package centres on large-scale earthworks and embankment construction to build up formation levels and stabilise ground conditions ahead of the full interchange upgrade. Geotechnical focus will be on settlement control and embankment performance in a coastal, flood-prone corridor before major bridge and traffic-switching works proceed.

New climate-modelling by the British Geological Survey (BGS) projects that up to 11% of UK homes – several million properties – could face increased clay-related subsidence risk by 2070 as hotter, drier summers drive greater soil shrink–swell. The work uses UKCP18 climate scenarios to map susceptibility on shrink–swell clays, flagging particular exposure in southern and eastern England where high-plasticity London Clay and similar formations are widespread. For geotechnical and asset engineers, this points to tighter foundation design, tree and drainage management, and targeted monitoring of existing low-rise housing stock.

Professor Lyesse Laloui has been elected President of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) for 2026–2029 at the Vienna Council Meeting held alongside the XXI ICSMGE 2026. Laloui, Chair Professor at EPFL and director of its Laboratory for Soil Mechanics, brings a portfolio of more than 560 publications and 19,000+ citations spanning constitutive modelling, energy geostructures, CO₂ storage and multiphase porous media. The Council also confirmed XXII ICSMGE for Shanghai in November 2029 and the next Council Meeting in Istanbul, 20–25 August 2028.

The Corporate Associates Presidential Group of ISSMGE will run a dedicated panel at the 21st International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering in Vienna in 2026, focusing on the future of geotechnical engineering practice. Industry leaders from major consulting firms, contractors and equipment suppliers are expected to address digital design workflows, advanced in situ testing, and risk allocation in large infrastructure projects. Outcomes are likely to influence updates to corporate design standards, procurement strategies and adoption of emerging investigation and monitoring technologies.

Researchers at UC Berkeley, funded by Yuba Water, have launched a Levee Digital Twin Platform for the Yuba River corridor, integrating continuous sensor data, geotechnical models and inspection records into an interactive system for levee condition assessment. The platform combines real-time pore pressure and deformation monitoring with historical performance data to flag anomalous behaviour along specific reaches and embankment sections. Engineers can use the tool to prioritise field investigations, refine seepage and stability analyses, and plan targeted remediation before high-flow events.

Geosynthetics are moving from niche products to standard tools for Australian infrastructure delivery as Geoquest deploys geogrids, geotextiles and geocells to tackle increasingly poor ground and constrained project footprints. The company is customising reinforced soil structures, basal reinforcement and pavement subgrade improvement systems to reduce imported fill volumes, shorten construction programmes and enable construction over soft clays and variable alluvium that would previously require deep piling. For practitioners, the shift allows slimmer pavement designs, higher embankments on marginal soils and more predictable deformation behaviour under traffic loading.

Vinci Construction has expanded its Latin American ground technologies portfolio by acquiring Grupo TDM’s geosynthetics division in Peru, a regional supplier of geotextiles, geomembranes and geogrids for mining, road and hydraulic works. The deal gives Vinci direct control of design–supply–install capability for reinforced soil walls, basal reinforcement and lining systems on high-embankment highways and tailings storage facilities in the Andes. For geotechnical contractors and designers, this signals stronger OEM-backed support for geosynthetic solutions on steep slopes, soft-ground foundations and aggressive seismic conditions in the region.

Inter‑helix spacing for helical piles and anchors is traced from early empirical rules of thumb (typically 3× helix diameter) to current design approaches based on cylindrical shear and individual bearing models. The review compares performance implications of close spacing (overlapping stress bulbs, higher installation torque, potential group behaviour) versus wider spacing (reduced interaction, deeper embedment, more steel), and links them to torque‑to‑capacity correlations. For practitioners, it clarifies when legacy spacing rules remain adequate and when soil type, load regime, and installation constraints justify project‑specific optimisation.

Recent high-rise construction in South Florida is driving demand for deep foundations in karstic limestone, with Keller using large-diameter drilled shafts and augered cast-in-place piles to control settlement in weak, highly variable strata. The DFI Deep Foundations Magazine feature by Michael Meneses, Will Burgos, and James Hussin details case histories where groundwater levels near sea level, aggressive chloride environments, and strict lateral deflection limits governed design. For practitioners, the projects emphasise rigorous geotechnical characterisation, corrosion protection strategies, and construction QA/QC to manage risk in coastal high-rise work.

Keller North America has expanded its field engineer / project engineer development programme after a successful pilot, formalising a structured path from site-based roles into project management and technical leadership. The scheme combines intensive on-the-job training on ground improvement and deep foundation projects with rotations through estimating, design, and operations, exposing graduates to tools such as geotechnical instrumentation, grout mix design, and pile load testing. For contractors and clients, the move signals a pipeline of early-career engineers with stronger design–build integration skills and site-ready competence.