Total Ground Engineering (TGE) and Earth Stability were named a finalist, representing Australasia, in the International Society for Micropiles (ISM) 4th Micropile World Cup for our project: Micropiled Cell Towers for the Rural Connectivity Group, New Zealand.
The Rural Connectivity Group (RCG) is a joint venture of three of New Zealand's largest telecom companies, tasked with extending wireless broadband to the edges of the network and connecting remote rural communities. The remaining sites range from valleys of alluvial river gravels to hard-rock alpine sites exposed to high winds, where standard pad and piled foundations are uneconomical or impossible with no effective access for concrete deliveries.
TGE and Earth Stability proposed foundations for cell towers and control cabinets using micropiles secured with structural steel head-frames — a modular, repeatable and economical solution for difficult-to-access sites. A suite of four steel headframes was developed for towers up to twenty metres high and site wind speeds of up to eighty metres per second.
The headframes are designed to fit onto the back of a flatbed 4x4 utility truck with trailer, carrying portable drilling equipment, a compressor and grout mixer with cement and water. The unit can reach most sites on rural and highland farm tracks; where there is no vehicle access at all, plant and materials are air-lifted by helicopter.
Each unit is crewed by two skilled workers, and each site takes between three and five days to complete. At the time of the submission, thirty sites had been built — about fifteen percent of the two hundred sites built since TGE-ESL engaged with the RCG.
