08/03/2019
Soletanche Bachy uses a soil improvement technique new to Peru as part of the Talara refinery expansion project
Soletanche Bachy Perú has just completed soil improvement works for one of the most important Peruvian government project, for the construction company Graña y Montero, who is in charge of the building of the auxiliary units of the refinery.
This is the first time that the dynamic substitution soft soil improvement treatment now being used by Soletanche Bachy Perú in joint-venture with Menard has been used in this South American country. The method was adopted as the best option for the project to construct buildings located in the complementary zones 17 and 18 of the Talara refinery expansion project.
The potential instability of the soil in the event of an earthquake – which can cause serious damage to buildings or trigger a total collapse – led Soletanche Bachy Perú and Menard to choose this soil improvement method to minimise the risk of liquefaction to a depth of 8 metres within the Talara refinery expansion area.
For this project, dynamic substitution involved dropping a mass of 15 tonnes from heights of up to 14 metres to create large-diameter granular columns to reinforce the compressible soils to a depth of 4 metres and improve the underlying sands between 4 and 8 metres depth using dynamic compaction.
1163 granular columns have been realised in a surface of 29.000 m2, reach a maximum depth of 4 metres and average 1.80 metres in diameter.
The project, which began in November 2018, was successfully completed in February 2019.
