Olympic piling equipment gets its time in the spotlight
While billions of people all over the world have watched the events of the London 2012 Olympics on TV, many will not have given a thought to the piling equipment and construction machinery that went into creating the venues, most of which – particularly on the Olympic Park itself – were built from scratch for the Games.
However, the piling equipment used on the Olympic Park is given its rightful moment in the spotlight on the London 2012 ‘Get Set’ website, which offers learning materials and education resources relating to the Games, and particularly the preparations made before the sporting spectacle got underway.
The entry on piling rigs explains that those used at the Olympic Park were screw piling platforms, to reduce noise and vibration, and were capable of drilling through dry or wet soil, or directly through rock.
In all, the foundations of the Olympic Park are up to 60-90m deep – creating a firm platform on which the various sporting achievements of the nations of the world have been played out over the past few weeks.