Vietnam | Ca Mau Power Plant Phase 1 & 2

Project Overview

The project consisted in the construction of 2 units of 750 MW each of a combined cycle power plant in the south of the Mekong Delta, on an extremely poor ground made of 15 to 17 m thick very soft clay overlaying a firm to stiff clay.

Ground Condition

The initial solution considered by the client was -either to carry out a drain and surcharge solution, but this solution , to be applied very slowly due to very poor soil characteristics, was incompatible with the schedule for part of the plant and was rendered expensive by the need to haul the sand from 200 km away -or to have all structures, including roads, drains, founded on RC square piles (40 to 50 m long): that solution was costly, and did not solve fully the problem of long term settlements (estimated at 1.5 m over the lifetime of the plant).

Menard Solution

MENARD proposed to implement a homogeneous treatment of the soil by vertical drains and MENARD VACUUM. This method allowed treating generally the platform as a whole for spread service loads varying between 2 and 10 T/m², and suppressing most of the piles.

Moreover, the MENARD VACUUM process ensured drastic reduction of the necessary amount of sand fill (4m less temporary backfill), and especially the consolidation time (6 months instead of 14).

For areas less critical in the schedule, the classical solution by vertical drains and surcharge was kept.