Hick Bros Construction & Designers

The design value that constructors can add is not always realised. Quite often, they are given a design and asked to build it, end of story. However, given their hands-on experience, this can leave a lot of value unrecognised. Efficient designs save time, money and carbon. 

Fortunately, Hick Bros have taken a very proactive role in roading design. Together with their survey partners, they have made adjustments to a substantial amount of the circa 22km roading network. 

Some of these changes have been minor, some have been major. All have added value to the project. At the time of writing, the approximate carbon emissions savings from these changes is 843 tonnes. This is 13% of the carbon emitted by earthwork machinery to date.     

One example of the design changes made is at a major intersection for a finger road that provides access to four turbines. The original design was a standard perpendicular T-junction. This design required a large volume of fill to span a gully, as the long turbine blades cannot travel across sharp dips in the road. After some deliberation, Hick Bros had the idea to do away with the large fill and essentially replace it with two roads. Although this change to the road design increased the total cut required for this intersection by 10,100 m³, it decreased the total fill required by 22,800 m³. This provided a net earthworks volume saving of 12,700 m³. Furthermore, creating a structural fill is machine and carbon intensive as the dirt needs to be compacted as it is built up, so the road doesn’t have any weak spots. 

From a sustainability perspective, we are building a wind farm which is a good thing, nevertheless, HOW we build it still matters. Every tonne of carbon we can avoid emitting is a win. Efficient design plays a big part in minimising carbon, but the design process shouldn’t always end at the drawing board. In the field, contractor involvement can add a lot of value as Hick Bros have illustrated.