Investigation on Working Platforms for Tracked Plant - A full scale field study to evaluate the performance of different working platform reinforcements

Abstract

Working platforms are often used on construction sites where the ground conditions needs to be improved to carry tracked plant such as pile rigs. There are risks concerning the economy and safety on site if the working platform is not sufficiently designed to withstand the pressure from the tracks. Reinforcements can be used to increase the bearing capacity of the working platform. This Master’s thesis studies the influence of two different types of working platform reinforcements. The types of reinforcements studied are geogrids and log mats. This was mainly done through a field trial, although, numerical models and analytical calculations were conducted to validate and further analyse the behaviour of a reinforced working platform. The results show that the load spread efficiency is improved when using reinforcements, however, it could not be positively concluded which type of reinforcement was most efficient. It was found that the efficiency of the log mat was largely dependent on the contact surface of the log mat with the working platform hence affecting the effective load spread area of the log mat. The influence of the geogrid was thought to be due to mechanical stabilisation of the soil as the load spread efficiency was improved even for small strains of the geogrid.