As the location was set on the side of a steep slope, building a working platform on the edge of the mountain was necessary.

To minimise the amount of fill material, a reinforced earth solution was proposed to achieve a steep slope and reduce the overall footprint of the structure. The platform needed to provide sufficient bearing capacity to accommodate construction traffic and heavy lifting equipment required to construct the 75 m tall turbines. The design surcharge used in the calculation was 45 kN/m², with a bearing capacity of 200 kPa on the finished surface of the hardstanding.

Geosynthetics determined that utilising on-site granular material along with a combination of StrataGrid™ (35 kN and 55 kN at 600 mm spacing) would allow the construction of 10 m high, 70-degree walls, making the solution viable for the contractor.

The reinforced soil wall was designed following SD8006:2010 for internal stability and Eurocode EC7 for global stability assessment. By introducing the reinforced earth solution, the overall height of the structure was significantly reduced from approximately 30 m to a more practical 10 m. This enabled faster project delivery within budget.

Strata offered the best solution at the best price.