JOB OPPORTUNITIES

Our sustained growth has created the following exciting opportunities:

Contracts Manager

We are looking for someone who has managed projects, including initial client contact and who has experience of pricing specifications and delivering to budget. You must also have a good knowledge of Health and Safety legislation in relation to the construction sector. Familiarity with the use of instrumentation for monitoring structural and ground behaviour will be useful.

Engineering Surveyor

We are looking for someone with experience of undertaking total station and precise level surveys for monitoring projects and of processing and analysing the data. You may have a first degree in civil engineering or engineering surveying. You will work with our growing team of surveyors on monitoring projects and assist in the planning and pricing of future projects.

If this describes you please download and complete our Application Form and send it to Dr Andrew Ridley.together with your CV.

Installation of tilt beams on Grade II Listed Building

Geotechnical Observations has recently installed fourteen tilt beams fitted with our new wireless tilt sensors (see below). Using a combination of end and router nodes a wireless sensor network was created that made the installation economic and efficient.

Data can be collected at frequencies as often as one minute intervals to give near "real time" information about the behaviour of the Grade II Listed building during the construction of a diaphragm wall on an adjacent site.

Data will be sent remotely via a 3G link to a website where the client can view the displacements as construction proceeds.

ANOTHER AWARD WINNING PROJECT!!

Geotechnical Observations is pleased to announce that under the leadership of Professor Neil Dixon, Loughborough University won the Civil Engineering category in "The Engineer" Awards for 2011.

The award recognised Professor Dixon's Slope Alarms System as having "potential to save thousands of lives and to improve the quality of life of millions of people."

Trials are currently being undertaken to develop a commercially available system that can provide early warning of landslides. These trials were supported by Geotechnical Observations through the installation of the instruments and the provision of comparable (SAA) systems for displacement monitoring in slopes.

Introducing GeO Wireless Tilt Sensors (more information on our Equipment page)

Geotechnical Observations is pleased to introduce a new wireless tilt sensor for structural monitoring. GeO wireless tilt sensors record tilt angle (in one or two directions) and temperature. Each measurement node transmits data wirelessly to a local programmable gateway from where it is sent to either a local PC, a remote PC via a modem or directly to the internet for worldwide viewing.

Wireless connectivity means that the monitoring system can be easily set up and configured without the need for power and signal cables. Each GeO wireless measurement node has exceptional battery life (typically greater than 5 years at hourly logging intervals)

Each Gateway can receive data from up to 32 nodes located up to 150m away. GeO wireless tilt sensors can also be mounted on beams.

Shape Accel Array (SAA) can be used to monitor structural displacements

Geotechnical Observations recently installed SAAs to monitor structural displacements during deconstruction of a structure.

The SAAs were fixed to structural members (see picture) that support the roof of the structure whilst an adjacent section of the building was demolished.

SAAs were used because they can detect tiny (sub mm) displacements that are too small to detect using total station surveys.

SAAs also allow this type of measurement to be made at a wider range of angles than most other tilt sensors and the displacements can be read directly onto a laptop using our battery powered interface (see picture) and Measurand's free software.

Shape Accel Array (SAA) installed at Tottenham Court Road (with the assistance of )

Geotechnical Observations has recently installed an SAA in-place displacement monitoring system at the site of the new Tottenham Court Road Station in central London. The 32m SAA was installed inside a sonic hole within a concrete pile and will be used to detect displacements when the Crossrail tunnels pass besides the pile in a few years time. Among the many advantages of the SAA system are that it can be installed inside a relatively small diameter hole without the need for grooved casing and it can be read directly onto a portable computer.

Instrumentation and Monitoring for the Construction of Heathrow Terminal 2B

Geotechnical Observations is currently undertaking monitoring for the construction of a new terminal building at London's Heathrow airport. Terminal 2B is a dedicated satellite building for the new Terminal 2. Construction of the basement for T2B will be undertaken within an excavation supported by a continuous diaphragm wall, which comes within a few metres of the working terminal buildings. GeO are installing over 100 inclinometers within and behind the diaphragm wall to monitor the performance of the wall as excavation proceeds. Where the excavation comes closest to the terminal buildings GeO will install in-place inclinometers to collect continuous data. The adjacent terminal buildings will be monitored using surveying techniques and a liquid levelling sytem. All of the data will be reviewed daily by our onsite monitoring team and presented to the project team using a web viewer.

AWARD WINNING PROJECT!!

GE Awards 2010 takes place on 5 February at Grosvenor House Hotel

Instrumentation Ground Investigation Laboratory Testing

Highways Slope Remediation using Fibre-reinforced Soil

A project in which Geotechnical Observations played a significant part has won the Ground Engineering Award for 2010 in the category "Projects under £1M." The project is a research project run by Mouchel and the Highways Agency to investigate the use of waste fibres to inhibit desiccation cracking caused by shrinkage and swelling in high plasticity clays. This is a significant problem on cut slopes and is a major cause of water ingress and shallow seated instability. GeO installed inclinometers, extensometers and flushable piezometers into a cut slope on the A1(M) to the north of London. Three sections of slope were instrumented, the first was a section that had no immediate signs of instability and the other two were sections that were repaired with varying quantities of fibres. GeO was also involved in undertaking trial pitting to identify changes in the structure of the clay and the depth of shear surfaces and laboratory tests to investigate the shrinkage behaviour of the fibre-reinforced soil.

The judges said: "This is a classic British geotechnical research project. Potentially this technique could have huge benefits for the whole geotechnical community in the future. This is a really significant piece of fieldwork and research, and it's nice to see that some serious money in being invested in large-scale innovative research."

Geotechnical Observations Limited
The Peter Vaughan Building
9 Avro Way, Brooklands, Weybridge
Surrey, KT13 0YF, United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0)1932 352040
Fax: +44 (0)1932 356375
Email: info@geo-observations.com
Web: www.geo-observations.com