2016-08-12
Temple Group in prestigious tunneling project
Members of the UK based FLO consortium have nominated the methods used for noise and vibration monitoring in a prestigious project in the London underground system to the Considerate Constructors Scheme. The method is applied throughout the extensive Northern Line Extension project.
The extension of the Northern line to Battersea will support 25,000 new jobs and more than 20,000 new homes. Two new stations, at Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station, are to be completed in 2020.
Considerate Constructors is an independent non-profit organisation founded to improve the standing of the British construction industry by abiding to the organization’s code of practice.
The integrated monitoring was managed by a team from Temple Group, a leading UK consultancy company, using Sigicom equipment for the monitoring of vibrations, noise, dust and other environmental disturbances.
Benefits of a fully integrated system
The Northern Line Extension project is the first major infrastructure scheme to use the Sigicom environmental monitoring system in the UK.
Based on actual complaints in the past, the proven benefits of a fully integrated system covering noise, vibration and dust are, for example:
• Using the sound playback function it was possible to show that the road sweeper was kicking up dust and triggering dust alerts.
• Simultaneously viewing noise and vibration data, it was revealed that high noise piling works were NOT the source of vibrations reported by local residents.
Optimized working window
The Northern Line Environmental Team has worked closely with Temple Group to develop additional capabilities to the system. This includes, for example, a predictive capability for construction noise. This optimized the working window before which noise thresholds are breached, and when further noise mitigation is required.
Another added feature is a macro to turn raw data downloaded from the Sigicom website into pre-populated monitoring reports. These reports, complete with tables and graphs are ready to be shared with the local Environmental Health officers and the general public.