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Innovative use of clay backfill at the new Wembley Stadium

Innovative use of clay backfill at the new Wembley Stadium
Innovative use of clay backfill at the new Wembley Stadium
Granular materials, sourced from quarried natural aggregates, are usually specified as backfill to retaining walls. These natural materials are becoming a scarce and expensive resource, particularly in Southern England. If used for urban projects, they will inevitably lead to additional construction traffic, with associated environmental damage. At Wembley Stadium, the use of clay backfill, derived from the on-site excavations, provided significant environmental benefits and a sustainable solution. Approximately 130,000 cubic metres of clay backfill was placed behind different types of retaining wall, varying from large embedded bored pile walls up to ten metres high (both propped and anchored) to small L-shaped walls. In order to verify the acceptability of the use of clay backfill, which can lead to large swelling pressures developing on the back of retaining walls, novel investigation and analysis techniques were necessary. This included specialist laboratory testing, an earthworks trial, and non-linear numerical analyses (using the FLAC code). The use of clay backfill is compared to the use of granular backfill in the context of sustainability and a whole life cost approach to engineering solutions. Social, environmental and economic issues are considered in order to provide a quantitative assessment rather than a simple qualitative assessment of the sustainable nature of the resulting scheme, taking into account any alterations or additional work required to accommodate the use of the clay backfill
Coventry University
O'Brien, A.S.
d88d5bd9-31ba-41e4-86f5-c4a6e2536f39
Carley, S.W.
bd26a0b5-ecfe-4a4b-8a09-9ecc6a6b1b43
Loveridge, F.A.
29678df0-3624-4c81-b393-cb5b3fe9a50e
Hsu, Y.S.
daa82e6c-67fc-47a6-b69b-a1185a7cb707
O'Brien, A.S.
d88d5bd9-31ba-41e4-86f5-c4a6e2536f39
Carley, S.W.
bd26a0b5-ecfe-4a4b-8a09-9ecc6a6b1b43
Loveridge, F.A.
29678df0-3624-4c81-b393-cb5b3fe9a50e
Hsu, Y.S.
daa82e6c-67fc-47a6-b69b-a1185a7cb707

O'Brien, A.S., Carley, S.W., Loveridge, F.A. and Hsu, Y.S. (2007) Innovative use of clay backfill at the new Wembley Stadium. In Proceedings of the Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies Conference. Coventry University..

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

Granular materials, sourced from quarried natural aggregates, are usually specified as backfill to retaining walls. These natural materials are becoming a scarce and expensive resource, particularly in Southern England. If used for urban projects, they will inevitably lead to additional construction traffic, with associated environmental damage. At Wembley Stadium, the use of clay backfill, derived from the on-site excavations, provided significant environmental benefits and a sustainable solution. Approximately 130,000 cubic metres of clay backfill was placed behind different types of retaining wall, varying from large embedded bored pile walls up to ten metres high (both propped and anchored) to small L-shaped walls. In order to verify the acceptability of the use of clay backfill, which can lead to large swelling pressures developing on the back of retaining walls, novel investigation and analysis techniques were necessary. This included specialist laboratory testing, an earthworks trial, and non-linear numerical analyses (using the FLAC code). The use of clay backfill is compared to the use of granular backfill in the context of sustainability and a whole life cost approach to engineering solutions. Social, environmental and economic issues are considered in order to provide a quantitative assessment rather than a simple qualitative assessment of the sustainable nature of the resulting scheme, taking into account any alterations or additional work required to accommodate the use of the clay backfill

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More information

Published date: 2007
Venue - Dates: Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies Conference, Coventry, UK, 2007-06-10 - 2007-06-12

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 53083
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/53083
PURE UUID: 523dbcc8-758e-4d45-9d99-f5d13ca50a4b

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 04 Aug 2008
Last modified: 08 Jan 2022 10:04

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Contributors

Author: A.S. O'Brien
Author: S.W. Carley
Author: F.A. Loveridge
Author: Y.S. Hsu

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