Building on fill

BRE (Building Research Establishment) is the UK's leading centre of expertise for construction, the built environment, energy, fire, security and many associated issues.

On 13 October 2015, BRE published Building on fill: geotechnical aspects 3rd edition 2015 (FB 75), written by Ken Watts and Andrew Charles.

The increasing demand for land for development and the political and commercial impetus to build on brownfield land means that a high proportion of new commercial, industrial and housing developments are now built on ‘fills’. That is, they are built on ground that has been deposited by human activity rather than by natural geological processes.

It is important therefore that there is a good understanding of the behaviour of fills and the ways they can be safely and economically rendered suitable for development.

This 336-page book, now in its third edition, encompasses BRE’s unique experience over a period of more than 40 years of research and consultancy, and brings the subject up to date since publication of the second edition 14 years earlier.

New material in the third edition includes:

• Recent research findings and industry experience.
• Ground improvement and treatment using proprietary and non-proprietary techniques.
• Case histories and updated cases from the second edition.
• Studies on the behaviour of fills over a longer time period and a wider range of fills.

Its contents include:

• Fills in context.
• Engineering behaviour of fills.
• Construction on fills.
• Performance of fills.
• Appendices.
• References and further reading.

--BRE Group

[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings

• Brownfield land.
• Contaminated land.
• Cover systems for land regeneration - thickness of cover systems for contaminated land (BR465).
• Fill.
• Ground conditions.
• Ground heave.
• Ground improvement techniques.
• Ground investigation.
• Hydraulically treated soils in residential construction (BR 513).
• Methane and other gasses from the ground.
• Pollution.
• Radon.
• Solid and liquid contaminants risk assessments.