Regufoam keeps One Southampton Row afloat

CMS Vibration Solutions has isolated the raft foundation and basement walls from nearby railway vibrations at major London development.

CMS Vibration Solutions, the anti-vibration specialist, has isolated the raft foundation and basement walls from nearby railway vibrations at One Southampton Row, London WC2, the seven storey office and retail scheme under construction by Bovis Lend Lease for developer Grandsoft.

Effective isolation was achieved using a range of systems designed to dampen vibration at source which included Regupol RAV200, a recycled rubber granulate material and differing grades of Regufoam, a high quality polyurethane foam.

One Southampton Row is being built close to two existing tube lines, with Crossrail due to run underneath in the future.

To protect the 2,000m2 foundation from ground borne noise and vibrations, CMS Vibrations installed 50mm thick Regufoam materials under the concrete raft.

The basement was constructed in the form of a cassette raft an unusual foundation system comprising a 750mm thick raft slab stiffened by integral reinforced concrete cross walls in the basement.

This required isolation to prevent vibrations from travelling through the raft and into the basement walls.

To achieve this, a combination of 25mm thick Regupol RAV and Regufoam materials were installed in sensitive areas, both underneath the raft slab and as a lining to perimeter basement walls.

As the development has a high water table, the level of which is just below the basement floor, the performance of the system specified had to be resistant to the effects of water penetration.

A dense closed cell foam, Regufoam easily achieved this project criteria.

David Davies, project manager, Bovis Lend Lease, comments: 'CMS Vibrations were really flexible in their approach.

They provided an effective system to meet our requirements and continued to be responsive to changing site programmes during the installation'.

Regufoam is available in a range of six density grades, the selection of which depends upon critical factors such as load bearing, natural frequency and deflection.

For One Southampton Row, CMS Vibrations specified, supplied and installed a combination of materials from the extensive BSW portfolio.

These included Regufoam 300 through to Regufoam 680 and Regupol RAV200.

Paul Lafone, director, CMS Vibration Solutions, concludes: 'By carefully assessing the unique requirements of One Southampton Row, we were able to identify the most cost effective system that would enable the project to go ahead, in spite of the ground borne vibration sources nearby.

The fact that we can provide a technical specification and then follow the process through to supply and install, means we can be flexible and responsive at all stages of a development'.

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