Health and Safety Risk Assessment Issues
1. Health and Safety Risk Assessment Issues [10%] Your response to part 1 should be approximately 800 words.
- Research a civil engineering project where the geotechnical aspects have failed. Clearly describe the mechanics of the failure and what caused the failure. [4%]
- Discuss which aspects of the risk assessment exercise were either overlooked or underestimated. What measures should have been taken to protect the health and safety of the workforce and/or the public? Reference must be made to current legislation to demonstrate your understanding of health and safety requirements. [3%]
- Who, in your opinion, was responsible for the failure, and why? [3%]
2. Retaining Systems & Climate Change [20%] Your response to part 2 should be approximately 1000 words.
Climate change is now firmly on the agenda within all aspects of life and civil engineering is no exception. This task is intended to heighten your awareness of climate change and to quantify how civil engineers can have a more positive impact for future generations:
- Review three different techniques for retaining soils. For each technique discuss the relative advantages and disadvantages with respect to Items 3, 4 and 8 from the CEEQUAL document. http://www.ceequal.com/downloads/
- For two of the techniques discussed in part (a) undertake a carbon accounting exercise for a project where soil is to be retained to a height of 6m, over a length of 25m. The carbon accounting should include sourcing and manufacture of materials, transportation, installation and maintenance.
3. Dissertation Style Research [40%] Your response to part 4 should be approximately 1400 words and must include at least 6 cited references, with a minimum of 3 from journal papers.
Settlement Prediction
Clients always want to know how much their project is going to move and it is up to the Geotechnical Engineer to try and predict such movement. Clays are particularly tricky to predict due to the very slow expulsion of water. However, much literature is available regarding London Clay.
With reference to London Clay, summarise the current research relating to the prediction of settlement for this soil. You must clearly define what is meant by a heavily over-consolidated clay, as opposed to normally consolidated or lightly over-consolidated clays. You may assume that we are dealing with very large loads where the settlements will be noticeable. Note that with clays we are interested in both the amount of settlement and the time over which this will take place.