Cambodia | 60M Mall Shopping Centre – PVD/Wick drains

On Hun Sen Boulevard, Menard’s CMC ground improvement solution replaces traditional Bored Piles for a cost-effective and efficient approach to building a 27,000m2 shopping center. Accelerate the consolidation period from 20 years to just 3 months with our innovative methods.

Project Overview

A new shopping centre (mall) is about to be built on Hun Sen Boulevard, the main road that is connecting the New Phnom Penh International Airport to the centre of the capital city. The shopping centre is about 27 000m² and is going to be built on an area that must be previously backfilled with 2 to 6 of material.

Ground Condition

The natural ground elevation is +5m MASL as an average. This level is also the level of the ground water table (flooded area). Below the NGL, the soil is composed of 18m of soft saturated clay.

Menard Solution

The project final elevation is +10m MASL, which means a total thickness of 5m of backfilled material as an average. Due to backfilled material own weight and buildings live loads, long terms settlements value is estimated to 80cm. To accelerate long term settlements and avoid deep foundations under buildings, Menard proposed a PVD (Prefabricated Vertical Drain) solution combined with well compacted surcharge with selected material.

Aim of PVD is to consume the 80cm of settlement in a period of 3 months rather than 20 years (also called consolidation period).

Aim of well compacted surcharge with selected material is, once consolidation is over and extra material removed, to directly bear building’s shallow foundations designed with 2,5 bars SLS bearing capacity.

This solution came as alternative solution to Bored Piles, which means an important cost optimization for our client.