Geotechnical Engineering Services Old Port Canal Project This 20,000 square metres commercial/retail development project on a 10 hectare site at Port Adelaide posed unique problems for the developers. The land had been reclaimed from an old canal and river, and firm ground lay up to 19 metres through soft fill and estuarine sediments. We were engaged to investigate and analyse the site, and the resulting footing design included more than 560 piles with an average depth of 21 metres. The fill was so soft in places that some of the piles sank into the ground up to 9 metres under their own weight. A post-tensioned slab design, with shallow wide beams, was used for the development. Another key element in this project was the assessment of earthquake risk due to the liquefaction potential of the substrata. Also in the Port Adelaide area We have carried out a number of projects on soft soils including design of a temporary foundation for oil rig platform construction on soft estuarine soils for Chicago Bridge and Iron, and design and supervision of sheds, soils for Adelaide Brighton Cement, ICI Australia and the South Australian Gas Company. In Western Australia, we designed and supervised a 1,000 tonne pile load test for large diameter piles supporting a synthetic rutile plant in sandy soils. Olympic Dam We were involved over a number of years with site investigation and development of township and mine infrastructure at Roxby Downs. Our involvement included the metallurgical plant, residential areas, water treatment plant, Decline Portal, tailings dam and evaporation ponds. Extensions - Tea Tree Plaza Koukourou Engineers provided a cost-saving design breakthrough for this major extension to the Westfield Tea Tree Plaza shopping complex. Using special geotechnical rigs, the Koukourou site investigation resulted in a halving of the number of piles originally incorporated in the design, and completely eliminated piling caps.