The effect of ground investigations on the civil engineering design for windfarms in Scotland

Published guidance is intended to provide a robust technical approach to assessing the underlying ground conditions at proposed windfarm developments, with a large focus on the need for peat investigation and assessment of peat slide risk and disturbance. The civil engineering design process for windfarms takes into consideration all findings of ground investigations but, with exception of peat landslide issues, ground investiga-tion design relies on the knowledge and experience of geotechnical engineers to ensure sufficient ground inves-tigations take place to inform an economical, efficient civil design while, in turn, meet the varying parameters of turbine manufacturer’s specifications. Extensive critical literature review revealed that there is an opportunity for establishing good practice guidance in ground investigation schemes for windfarms. Additionally, there is also a need to evaluate the effects of ground investigations on civil design process for windfarms. For this study we engaged with a range of industry professionals and reviewed relevant case studies to investigate the above needs. Based on the results of our research, we propose an innovative good practice framework that will promote effec-tive ground investigation design for windfarms and a standardisation of civil design.