Social landlord River Clyde Homes made the decision to demolish Octavia Court鈥檚 101 outdated flats as part of its regeneration strategy. It sought guidance from the external consultancy in safely bringing down the 50m high structure.
RVA Group was engaged to project manage the demolition programme and provide safety coordination as well as offering independent structural and explosives engineering insight.
The close proximity of an electric Network Rail commuter line 鈥� the boundary of which sat just 3m from Octavia Court 鈥� posed an added challenge in addition to protecting the community.
Implosive demolition by far posed the safest and fastest methodology for demolishing the tower block. Not only would the alternatives of mechanical demolition or floor by floor dismantling have increased the possibility of debris falling onto the railway line, but a longer demolition period would have heightened the potential risk for project workers and the community. Furthermore, the controlled use of explosives meant that only one railway line possession would be required, and if the blowdown took place at night, disruption to commuter services would be minimal.
A six-month on-site preparation period took place. When left with just a concrete shell, the team then began explosives preparation by pre-weakening five blast floors. Sections of wall were deliberately removed, before 550 holes were drilled in key structural positions. Drilled members were then wrapped with chainlink fencing and high performance plastic sheeting to contain explosives-driven fragments, and one week prior to the blowdown, the drilled holes were charged with a total of 10kg of explosives.
The explosives were then connected with an intricate initiation and back-up system to detonate the charges in a sequence of small delays to produce the desired mode of collapse. A 150m exclusion zone was put in place around the tower to keep the public safe, and necessary security precautions were taken until the implosion took place.
Octavia Court was demolished in less than 10 seconds. The tower successfully fell as designed, and as there was no debris on the line.
The site will now be used to create housing for up to 56 people.
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