The Most Common Highways-Based Geotechnical Services

by | Apr 16, 2021

Britain’s road network is as big as it is complex; for a relatively small country, in terms of land mass, we’ve got a huge number of highways. From huge motorways through to the tiniest of country roads, our roads get a lot of usage. With such traffic comes inevitable wear and tear. The team here at Borehole Solutions regularly deals with highway failures and other motoring-based geotechnical services; we wanted to talk through three of the most common situations where services such as ours are required on the roads.

 

Diverting Buried Services

Before any work is carried out on major roads, exploratory boreholes must first be drilled in order to confirm there are no major services running beneath it. If you’re looking to install a new carriageway, for example, you don’t want to crack on with the work only to be stopped halfway through by the discovery of something like a mains water pipe. This kind of preparatory work is as vital to geotechnical contractors like ours as is the drilling work itself.

 

Slope Stabilisation

Unstable roads range from the actively unsafe to any highway that happens to be built on a hillside or slope. Whether it’s a case of shoring up existing road infrastructure or the consideration of a brand new road, we’ll use our modular and restricted access drilling rigs – which are ideally suited for more difficult to navigate terrain – to carry out any remedial or initial drilling work required. In many cases, we’ll also install inclinometers to monitor the state of the slope over time, and to ensure that any pre-existing faults don’t worsen.

 

Landslips

When the subsurface fails in some way, in the form of a slip, for instance, this can cause the paving of the road to crack and open up into a fault. Whilst this might initially not cause too many problems, left exposed to the elements cracks like these will only worsen over time. It’s crucial, therefore, that as soon as failures such as these are detected, the ground beneath is sampled so that an appropriate response can be formulated. Softer rock types such as sandstone are particularly prone to such failures, and will need regular monitoring and upkeep.

 

Our Other Services

Alongside our highways work, we work with a range of other industries as sectors, as well. These include residential developments, urban geotechnical work, energy infrastructure, domestic energy projects and more. We’re one of the UK’s leading sonic drilling contractors and we also offer a range of other drilling types such as rotary and cable percussion.

 

Contact Us

The key to highways work is catching faults early and being proactive in the response. Trusted by contractors and organisations the whole country over, if you need remedial or exploratory highways work conducted, then you’ve come to the right place. So, if you’d like to find out more about our geotechnical investigation services, then get in touch! Contact Borehole Solutions today on 01733 200 501 or by emailing us at info@boreholesolutions.com. Or, if you’d rather, why not fill out one of our online enquiry forms on our contact page. We look forward to hearing from you.