Design and construction of deep basements in Dublin, Ireland

The paper describes the design and construction of five deep basements in Dublin. The basements are all located within the competent glacial tills which underlie a large part of the city. The basements were constructed using a variety of techniques including cantilever sheet piling, cantilever contiguous piling and propped secant piling. The governing design criteria are outlined and the experiences gained during construction, including the results of monitoring, are described. The lessons learned are evaluated to establish whether over conservative assumptions regarding the ground conditions and environmental criteria are being applied. It is concluded that the application of the observational approach is well suited to deep basement construction in Dublin. Cet article decrit le dessin et la construction de cinq sous sols profonds a Dublin. Ces sous sols sont tous situes dans la couche d’argiles a blocaux quis etend sous une large partie de la cite. Ces sous sols sont construits en utilisant diverses techniques dont cantilever sheet piling, cantilever contiguous piling et propped secant piling. Le cahier des charges de la realisation des plans est evoque, l’experience aquise pendent la construction ainsi que le resultat du monotoring sont decrits. Les lecons tirees sont evaluees pour etablir si on n’applique pas des suppositions trop prudentesen ce qui concerne les conditions et les criteres de l’environment. En conclusion nous affirmons que l’application d’une approche basee sur l’observation est particulièrement adaptee a la construction de sous sols profonds a Dublin.