SubTerra Engineering is a  geotechnical, tunnelling and mining consultancy, providing a range of engineering, design, and geotechnical services for underground excavations in soft ground and rock, from microtunnels to tunnels, caverns and shafts.  This experience covers feasibility studies, design and construction supervision, for water supply, sewerage, transportation, hydropower, research test facilities, and radioactive waste disposal schemes. 

We are a member of the AGS offering services related to the design, supervision and reporting of site investigations tailored to the requirements of the tunnelling industry including; Selection of appropriate testing to determine excavatability and potential for component/tool wear, high quality core logging and discontinuity mapping for input into rock mass classification schemes for design.

Engineering Petrography is carried out in house enabling the abrasivity of rock samples to be determined.

Our expertise in geological and geotechnical analysis and interpretation, combined with the latest software for analysis and design enables us to provide cost effective innovative designs for all facets of underground excavation engineering, including;

.Interpretation of factual geotechnical data to provide geotechnical baseline reports and design parameters, analysis of geotechnical data for excavation method selection, including prediction of excavation output rates and tool consumption costs, design of ground stabilization and settlement reduction measures, design of temporary and permanent rock support systems (including NATM) using analytical numerical and empirical techniques including; ground-support interaction analysis, kinematic analysis, boundary element analysis, finite element analysis, rockmass classification

Development of site-specific support classification schemes, estimation of support quantities and costs from geotechnical/geological assessment; cost comparison of alternative support options.  Prediction of structural overbreak

Using factual SI data, we can create geological and geotechnical models of the proposed underground excavation. Input of machine parameters enables modelling of the performance of TBM's and Roadheaders to predict excavation outputs.    Variations in the expected ground conditions can also be modelled to determine delays.

Our experience with monitoring systems cover many types of project, including hard rock tunnels, research test facilities and soft ground urban tunnels.  A complete range of expertise is offered, including; design of instrument arrays and integrated monitoring systems, incorporating automatic data acquisition, selection, procurement, & installation, QA plans and technical procedures for installation, testing and monitoring..

Our Design, optimization and monitoring of blasts including the design and supervision of trial blasts to develop site laws  Analysis of trial blast data to determine MIC's and drill & blast cycle times, monitoring of production blasts to verify compliance with specified vibration limits, diagnostic vibration monitoring for design optimisation & cost reduction.  Blast design including perimeter control techniques to limit vibration, blast damage, overbreak and temporary support requirements.

Provision  of  geotechnical  staff  the collection and analysis of geotechnical data for underground excavations during construction, including;  face mapping and data acquisition in line with excavation, production of geotechnical records, rockmass classification for ground support and payment, excavation stability analyses, temporary support designs, and laser profiling of underground excavations for measurement of overbreak/underbreak.

Provision  of  geotechnical  staff  for specialist underground data acquisition, collation of  data, analysis and preparation of claims  relating  to  unforeseen ground  conditions,  including; investigation of unforeseen tool wear and tool consumption relating to rock strength and abrasivity.

Expert witness for arbitration for rock mechanics, rock excavation, rock quality, rock support, machine performance, and tunnel design

Projects