CDM Smith has been part of this pioneering project during the pre-construction phase already, since 2011, providing all geotechnical consultancy and planning services for the foundation of the construction project and supervising work execution on site. We also supervised the execution of the work on site and planned the excavation pits, which were up to 21 metres deep. We also supervised their execution on site, including soil management for around 1 million cubic metres of excavated soil.
Except for the accelerator ring, we planned the structures’ construction using a ‘combined pile-plate foundation’. Using 3-dimensional finite element calculations, we investigated the load bearing and deformation behaviour of the subsoil under the future load conditions. A test load with 16- and 22-metre-long bored piles at a depth of 60 metres and test fills improved the planning and cost certainty. Within a construction period of just 14 months, 60,000 metres of bored piles were produced.
Currently, the shell construction work is being completed in two of the three construction areas. The installation of underground pipework on a large scale is still pending so is the finalisation of the terrain modeling by reinstalling the excavated soil. The backfill around the research buildings will be raised to a height of around 14 metres above the original ground level. CDM Smith is currently carrying out quality monitoring as part of this process. Parallel to the exterior work, the technical interior work with the research facilities is also progressing.
Did you know?
FAIR is a unique international accelerator facility for research with antiprotons and ions. The centrepiece of the new underground facility is a 1.1 km long ring accelerator. In this, electrically charged particles, ions and antiprotons reach a speed of 297,000 km/s and thus almost the speed of light. By colliding with a material sample such as foils or biological cell samples and the resulting collision reaction, scientists hope to gain new insights into the evolution of the universe.