ICE President’s Visit to Engineers Ireland

Overview

Watch Rachel Skinners Engineers Ireland Address here

Engineers Ireland will host a “virtual visit” to Ireland by the President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Rachel Skinner. Professor Orla Feely, President of Engineers Ireland will introduce this webinar in which Rachel Skinner will deliver an abridged version of her Address at 13:00 hours to a joint meeting of members of Engineers Ireland and ICE's Republic of Ireland Branch.

Register now to attend this lunchtime event where Rachel shares her thoughts on the main theme of her Presidential year: Shaping Zero and the vital role that Engineers must play in achieving this.

As part of her inaugural address, ICE President Rachel Skinner launched a specially commissioned film "Shaping Zero" which can be accessed here

As well as the Presidential Address, the ICE Republic of Ireland branch are pleased to invite you to a full day of presentations showcasing the work of ICE Members in the Republic of Ireland.
 

Agenda:

10:00-10:30 Catherine O’Brien: Crown Square Development Project talk
10:30 – 11:00 Laurence Gill: The Design of a Groundwater Flood Alleviation Scheme in an Area of Lowland Karst.
11:00 – 11:30 Niall Gibbons Generating Energy from Fluvial Flows
13:00 – 14:30: Rachel Skinner’s Presidential Address

Morning Presentations:

Crown Square Development – Integration of Partially Completed Structures into the New. Catherine O’Brien – BEng(Hons) CEng MICE MIEI

Description:
Crown Square is a major development in Galway City comprising 40,000m² of Grade A office space in five separate blocks, 60,000m² of double basement car park, an 8,600m² hotel, 345 apartments in 3 blocks of up to 10 storeys and 4,000m² of commercial area, as well as landscaped podium and public areas and ancillary facilities. Construction commenced on site in mid-2019 and is expected to last for 3 years. This project is a Design and Build project with main Contractor JJ Rhatigan Ltd.

The design of the current development incorporates the adaptation, strengthening and integration of a partially completed precast concrete double basement structure, which covered approximately 0.9 ha of this 4.65 ha site. This presentation will discuss the measures taken to retain rather than demolish this structure, which had lain dormant for almost 10 years.

The Design of a Groundwater Flood Alleviation Scheme in an Area of Lowland Karst. Laurence Gill PhD CEng MICE

Description:
This project has involved a collaboration between academic and non-academic partners to design a groundwater flood alleviation scheme for the Gort lowlands region of south Galway. The Office of Public Works and Galway County Council identified the need for the flood alleviation project due to several severe groundwater flooding episodes in this lowland karst catchment over the past 20 years. Trinity College Dublin had been carrying out research for many years on the south Galway lowland karst area and had been developing a hydraulic model which simulates the groundwater/ surface water interactions in the region, known as turloughs, which are numerous and widespread. This pipe-network model of the karst aquifer, based on an urban drainage software, was extended to investigate different groundwater flood alleviation options in the lowland karst catchment by feeding it with the output from high spatial resolution regional climate model simulations. The research has led to a new way of characterising groundwater flood return periods as well as quantifying the impacts of future climate change on such groundwater flooding. This has then led to data that has been used for the design of the large-scale flood alleviation scheme by Ryan Hanley Consulting Engineers, which is currently at the public consultation stage.

Generating Energy from Fluvial Flows. Niall Gibbons MEng(Hons) GMICE

Description:

The concept of the project is to facilitate the conversion of energy of fluvial flow to electrical energy using an Archimedes Screw Turbine by modelling potential flow events using hydraulic software. The objective of this project is to effectively manage the water levels, hydraulic heads and flows to determine an appropriate alteration in fluvial flow to generate electrical energy.