Home » Projects » Ebbsfleet FC – Terrace stabilisation

Ebbsfleet United FC is an English football club based in Northfleet, Kent, which competes in the English National League, the fifth tier of English football. KEH Sports Ltd, a group of Kuwaiti investors advised by a former chief executive of Charlton Athletic, agreed in May 2013 to take over the club, bringing investment in the squad and in a training facility. The team’s home ground has been at Stonebridge Road since its inception in 1946 and as a consequence of the investment the team has seen considerable success requiring a need to increase its ground’s capacity.

The most cost-effective way of achieving the required increase in capacity of the ground was to increase the number of stalls on its terraces.

Ebbsfleet United engaged Oakdene Construction Ltd for the construction of its new terraces and during their investigation and tendering they identified that the slab supporting the existing terraces did not have sufficient load bearing capacity to take the increase in weight of the proposed new enlarged terraces.

Specifically, it was discovered that natural compaction due to settlement over time of soils had created a void beneath the slab, which whilst not causing issue to the existing slab and the terrace it supported, it would not take any increase load without treatment.

Geobear’s solutions was to inject its specialist expanding geopolymer resin below the slab into the void; filling the void brought about the extra load-bearing capacity required and without having to treat any additional soil. Obviously, the void would need filling and measure taken to increase the load-bearing capacity of the slab.

Customer alternatives

There were few options available to the customer, with the possible most extreme solution being demolition piling and rebuild. This would have been neither cost-effective or practical given the small-scale of the project and aim – a simple increase in terrace capacity. In addition, any solution had to be quick and non-disruptive simply to ensure minimal interruption to the construction schedule.

Oakdene Construction Ltd, aware of the geopolymer solutions available from Geobear, appointed the company to treat the soil and increase the load-bearing capacity of the existing supporting slab. Specifically, Geobear’s solution was to inject its specialist expanding geopolymer resin below the slab into the void. This filled the void and brought about the extra load-bearing capacity required and without having to treat any additional soil.

Why Geobear

The Geobear solution is fast efficient and extremely cost-effective for projects such as Ebbsfleet Untied FC. Its non-disruptive, non-invasive and environmentally friendly nature of its solutions bring many advantages both direct and indirect.

Geobear solution

Geobear’s void filling solution involved injecting a specialist load bearing geopolymer resin below the slab into the void. This filled the void and brought about the extra load-bearing capacity required and without having to treat any additional soil. The Geobear solution easily brought about the necessary increase in load bearing capacity, sufficient to support the increased loading from the expanded terrace.

The work was completed in two days, which was to-time and on budget.

Oakdene Construction Ltd and Ebbsfleet were pleased with the Geobear solution.

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