The Federation of Piling Specialists (FPS) has launched a ‘Sustainability by Design’ working group, to raise awareness across the piling sector and the general foundation consultancy industry of some of the design principles that could make a difference towards the journey of achieving Net Zero Carbon.

The working group will also examine some of the significant breakthroughs in the development of low carbon materials and maximising the re-use of existing foundations, but the main focus of the working group is to raise awareness of the principles that could make a difference by design.

Chaired by Dr. Dimitrios Selemetas, Technical Director at AKT II and FPS member, the new working group has been established specifically to provide guidance on the principles of performance driven design methods and held its first meeting in March 2023.

The meeting, attended by representatives from companies including AKT II, Keller, Bauer Technologies, Franki, Atkins, GSS-Morrisroe, Tensar, Cementation Skanska, Roger-Bullivant, Van-Elle, Balfour Beatty and Expanded Piling, discussed best practice methods for the integration between secant pile and raft design, the definition of Serviceability Limit State (SLS) for pile settlement and the specification of allowable settlement limits for pile tests.

Dr. Selemetas, Chair of the group, said:” As we move towards performance-based methods in foundation design, it is important that we understand the source of pile loads that are relevant to pile performance and place more emphasis on the Settlement of Foundations (SoF) rather than isolated Factors of Safety (FoS)”.

The goal of the working group is to publish guidance for the piling and wider construction in 2024.