Getting The Work Boots Dirty

Alot has happened in the past month and a half since I last posted.

Quick updates about work:

1. My first site visit ever occurred end(ish) of June. The road trip involved Michael Smith and Yi, (both have left SGA since then). I didn't have the right PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) at the time but we were driving along public roads so no one 'important' was in sight to tell us off.

Image 1.1: Posing in a drain so that the size of the culvert behind me could be roughly measured.


Image 1.2: One of the major drains along the southern section of the alignment Yi had to measure to calculate her catchment areas and model whatever she was doing.


Image 1.3: The work I've been in the past 3 months has been designing drainage incase no one has caught the drift in the images. So here's an image of a pretty small box culvert in which sediment has been building up over the years.


Image 1.4: We saw many of these along the way and visited the beach on the way back.

I discovered that lunch can be claimed when you go on site visits. The lunch stop prior to the beach was at Ravenswood.

2. Since then it's been back at the office with people leaving (Yi and Michael) and doing the drainage design on lot 21.3 Paganoni Road upgrade. It was a good experience as it wasn't too complex of a road and I learnt how to design pipe networks and also going through the experience of writing up the 30% design report. Last week the squad check submission has been returned and I've had to re-adjust parts of the design as we are having problems with one of the low points on the road where it's very close to the GWL (ground water level).

Permeability Testing images

Image left: The infiltrometer test
Image centre: The chainage we were at the time for that very time, which is at the very southern part of the entire alignment. I was close to Bunbury!
Image right: The outer ring is to keep the ground on the outside of the centre ring saturated so that the inner ring is infiltrating directly downwards and the measure of water flow is kept within the area of the inner ring. I don't think I explained myself very well...

I have also been working on a more complex part of the freeway which came to a halt. This occurred when I was sent down on-site again to assist technicians from Western Geotechnics to the locations where we wanted testing to be done to determine the permeability of the ground. It was a lot more scarier as I was on my own and had to lead the way and contact the foremens' onsite and ask for permission to get onto the alignment etc. Even better I got to drive the Prado and the LV and for a whole weekend had the LV at home since I was heading down south the next day.

Other bonuses: Received the last of my PPE which is a pair of steel cap boots!

Now it's back at the office working on the drainage on the freeway as I have been given the indicator of the urgency of a design to come through having recently sat in a meeting with John (Northern Manager), Graeme (Northern Senior Team leader), Tim Tucak (Senior Drainage Eng) and Raymond (Senior Drainage Eng who's leaving in 2 days) I am a bit freaked out because I feel I am slow and do not know how to work out the problematic areas.