Burlington sits on a tricky stretch of the Halton plain where the shale bedrock dips beneath thick layers of glaciolacustrine clay. The city's growth along the QEW corridor pushed tunnel infrastructure through these soft deposits more than once. Our team knows the local stratigraphy from core shed to lab bench. Before any TBM or sequential excavation method moves forward, we run the full suite of index and strength tests so the design team knows exactly what the ground will do under stress. A triaxial test program gives the drained and undrained parameters that control face stability in these clays, while Atterberg limits flag the sensitivity that makes Burlington's silty clays prone to remolding during construction.
Soft ground tunneling in Burlington demands lab data that captures the sensitivity of glaciolacustrine clays before the TBM ever arrives on site.
