On completion, the Forth Replacement Crossing was the longest three pier cable-stay bridge in the world. The building of the new bridge was the largest Scottish infrastructure project in a generation, and ERS was honoured to be a part of it.

We undertook a number of cable percussive, rotary and sonic drilling work packages throughout the construction phase of the project, many of which required drilling adjacent to live carriageways and hard shoulders during night lane closures.

We also carried out very technical procedures in hard-to-access areas, such as steep embankments. We had to set up platforms to conduct drilling of prebores for the large diameter piles which would stabilise the North abutment section of the bridge. We also undertook drilling within a coffer dam to enable an assessment of stress relief associated with the removal of overburden during the construction of one of the approach piers.

Cable percussion boring and dynamic probing was carried out in various locations across the construction site, often at short notice but still with full-time engineering supervision. This was necessary to replace lost monitoring points and plug information gaps. We also helped with logging and photography of samples and rock cores, all carried out to highway specifications.