Wall Surveillance
Automated monitoring of slurry walls during excavation
The Harvard Allston Science Complex is a four-building research facility in Allston, Massachusetts, that is the home of a number of Harvard interdisciplinary scientific initiatives. Construction for the complex began in early 2008 with the installation of deep, reinforced slurry walls to provide retaining support for a nearly 6-acre area, 48ft deep excavation into Boston blue clay. An extensive program of tieback installation at 4 different depths was performed in concert as the excavation progressed. The bulk of the excavation was completed in January 2009, along with a significant portion of the 5-ft-thick reinforced concrete-base slab.
Geocomp’s challenge was to oversee the installation, operation and maintenance of a robust and automated system for monitoring the slurry walls during excavation and to detect effects on the surrounding buildings and services. Per project specifications, Geocomp implemented a mixture of automated and manual monitoring systems. All of the monitoring data from these different systems were collected and reported through Geocomp’s iSiteCentral® web-based data management and reporting system and were available to all authorized users, including the construction contractors. The system was also capable of issuing emails/alerts if any of the project threshold values were reached or exceeded.