Ground engineer Nirmal Tiwari is passing on 50 years of experience to the industry’s new recruits through the Ground Forum undergraduate mentoring programme.

Q. What are you currently working on?

Having gained experience in different ground conditions in nine countries and worked with people of different mindsets, cultural backgrounds and social and economic status, I’m the ideal person to help mentees. Hence, I’m mainly devoted to being a good mentor helping university students gain practical knowledge, both technical and social, to complement their studies, while introducing them to the field of piling and foundation engineering.

My work also involves contributing to the Federation of Piling Specialists' (FPS') sustainability programme. I am spending a considerable amount of my time learning about the work being done in UK and the US on the production, storage and distribution of clean hydrogen and the change in technology and mindset required for it to be the fuel for the next generation. It was interesting to follow the proceedings of Cop26 in Glasgow in November 2021.

Q. What do you enjoy most about your work?

I find the variety of questions that the mentees ask and being able to resolve their queries to be most interesting and satisfying. I also enjoy interacting with them and other mentors, together with the Ground Forum and FPS teams and the staff at Steer who facilitate the mentoring programme.

Q. What has been the most memorable project you have worked on and why?

It has to be the world famous “seven star hotel” – the iconic Burj Al Arab in Dubai. Having successfully priced the £5M piling tender during the Christmas holidays in 1994, I was tasked with setting up the site in March 1995 and with supporting the project manager with my previous knowledge of the area. The Burj was an interesting project as it sits on a man made island built 300m offshore by Dutco Balfour Beatty. It included 200 large diameter piles more than 50m, each of which took a 24 hour shift to complete. It was hard work to drill through conglomerates, sandstone and calcisiltite, a type of limestone. To say that multiple bags of drilling teeth were consumed would be an understatement. Each pile required over 12 wagons of concrete made using iced water, chilled aggregates and special plasticisers to ensure good quality tremie concrete in the 40˚C heat. The concrete was delivered in wet, hessian-covered concrete drums, using the principle that evaporation causes cooling.

From 2004 onwards, together with our programmer Jason Scott, I was also deeply involved in developing the Balfour Beatty in-house estimating system SIESTA, the Stent Integrated Estimating Application, for all disciplines. This involved extensive testing to ensure that the outcome was the same as what we got from the spreadsheets that were being used at that time. Having developed the estimating packages, we set about linking a programme called Green SIESTA, effectively a carbon calculator, to the estimates in 2007. This programme, with minimal additional work by estimators, was able to provide the carbon footprint for each tender. Tony Suckling’s (now director of A-squared Studio) input in obtaining from NIFES the carbon content figures for each of the constituents used in the construction of a pile speeded up the delivery process immensely.

Q. Who or what inspires you?

I respect people who transfer their vast knowledge to others, like the professor who taught me soil mechanics during my five year civil engineering degree at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. This ignited my interest in the subject of ground engineering. I have been inspired in the past by the stalwarts in the piling industry, including colleagues who guided me along my career path and kept alive my interest in foundations. It was their determination and a positive, futuristic outlook that instilled similar qualities in me and I found that to be extremely rewarding. Encouragement from clients, colleagues and senior managers has helped boost my morale.

Q. What challenges and opportunities should the geotechnical sector focus on today and in the future?

With the High Speed 2 project having just got underway, a major skills shortage has been revealed. With such a large amount of piling, diaphragm walling and ground improvement involved, it is incumbent on people in the higher echelons of the industry to start programmes to attract students from the universities in this field. The FPS and other bodies are already doing this through their early careers group and the mentoring schemes. More could be done by having additional mentors and students from other larger companies embracing these programmes. The Ground Forum could send senior members to universities on a recruitment drive, interviewing students in the final years of their courses. With this as the current focus, it is also imperative that we educate our younger generation about sustainability in the short and long term, making them aware of climate change and how they can start shaping the future.

Q. What would you tell people interested in a career in ground engineering?

The subject of soil mechanics is very intriguing and the field of piling and foundation engineering offers many challenges as the ground conditions vary so much. Each site poses a different dilemma to the whole team, right from the designer, estimator to the project manager. And as a team they have to decide the correct and the most efficient technique to be adopted. Various contractual disputes emanate from the misinterpretation of the site investigation report, especially if the client has not carried out a detailed SI. This involves the quantity surveyor, so, whatever field your interests lie in, the variable ground conditions make every day a different one.

In addition to the above my advice to the younger generation would be to have core values to guide you. Work hard, be conscientious and show your willingness to learn, as it always pays.

Embrace change, as Mahatma Gandhi said: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” I would add the famous lyrics which should encourage one and all: “Climb every mountain, ford every stream, follow every rainbow, till you find your dream.”

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Tagged with: Engineering Insight Federation of Piling Specialists Ground Forum mentoring sustainability

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Great to see your experience being used to such great use Nirmal. Well done!

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