Lankelma
Rail Ground Investigation
This article first appeared in the Railway-News magazine Issue 5 2021.
Established in 1999, Lankelma has grown to become a world leader in specialist Cone Penetration Test (CPT) site investigations.
Their qualified, highly experienced field operatives and an extensive fleet of CPT equipment can be mobilised anywhere in the UK at short notice. With over 15 years of experience working in the rail industry, Lankelma can perform ground investigations in all areas of the trackway.
CPT is a technique for soil testing that is ideal for rail investigations because it is quiet, produces minimal disturbance and spoil, and can achieve deeper penetration (depending on the geology). Time is critical when working in a rail possession and CPT offers fast assessment of soil conditions under the track with a high degree of accuracy and repeatability. A CPT is performed by pushing an instrumented cone into the ground at a constant rate, with measurements recorded every 20mm.
CPT investigations characterise subsurface materials in situ, produce continuous profiles, and determine soil parameters including soil type, in situ stress conditions and shear strength for use in geotechnical design. Highquality results are available in realtime which allows engineers to take decisions on site during the ground investigation. This is particularly useful when identifying the best locations for further investigation, especially as detection of potential problems is of paramount importance on the railway.
As the use of CPT in railway investigations has grown, Lankelma has developed specialist rail CPT plant and equipment specifically designed for ground investigations in the four main rail environments: track bed, embankments, tunnels and stations. These rail CPT plant can be used with the full range of standard and specialist cones and be used to install instrumentation. Provided there is sufficient reaction force and a power supply, CPTs can be carried out almost anywhere.
