Infrastructure

For more than 90 years, Consult Infrastructure has been HOCHTIEF’s central technical unit for civil and structural engineering. Given this background, we often assist our construction colleagues, jointly undertaking demanding infrastructure projects with them both in Germany and abroad. On-site implementation gives us the opportunity to repeatedly validate our design solutions and to enhance them with practical innovations. Within our areas of expertise, we provide engineering services for all phases of a project.

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Civil engineering and tunneling

Designing tunnels and underground structures has traditionally been part of our core business. Whenever HOCHTIEF is involved in a tunnel project, experts from Consult Infrastructure are part of the project team. This is no surprise because there is hardly any other construction sector in which the design and construction processes are so closely interwoven.

Our civil engineering and tunneling expertise is based on comprehensive hands-on construction site experience. An understanding of construction methods, their applicability and their limits is an important success factor when our civil, tunneling and geotechnical engineers develop an optimized solution—for the benefit of our clients—for a given project with its specific geological parameters.

Bridges and civil engineering structures

Bridges are often seen as the most spectacular feats of civil engineering. This goes both for large bridges that extend over land or water, and for sophisticated structures crossing densely populated areas, or those for which special assembly methods are necessary in order to reduce the impact of transportation routes on the environment.

We love challenges like these. Based on our experience acquired from decades of working on HOCHTIEF construction sites, we create optimized solutions—be they for major landmark bridges, or for a series of standard structures along a highway.

Transportation routes and airports

The transportation engineers from Consult Infrastructure have been and remain involved in numerous infrastructure projects worldwide. Alongside our own design, we also handle design management, design reviews and due diligence.

Hydraulic and environmental engineering

Most hydraulic engineering projects—be they complex civil engineering, tunneling or cavern construction, or any structures in or beside water, etc.—entail diverse specialist disciplines that number among Consult Infrastructure’s core competencies.

The same goes for many environmental construction jobs that often require special civil engineering and infrastructural expertise. We provide both classic engineering disciplines and particular specialist services in both of these areas.

Industrial engineering

Depending on the specific request, in industrial engineering we work closely with our sister departments of Consult IKS and Consult CMS. Our focus here is on those areas in which our expertise in civil engineering, structural engineering and geotechnical engineering produces added value for our clients.

In southern England, for example, we developed and implemented a floating caisson solution for a waste incineration plant without which it would probably have been impossible to realize the project in this particular location. We have helped other industry clients to optimize the foundations of their structures, or to mitigate and control settlements beneath sensitive construction elements.

We are increasingly providing these services directly to external clients—be it our own design, or in the form of a design review or value engineering of a design prepared by others.

Geotechnical engineering

No matter what the geological parameters of a project are, our geotechnical engineers possess a wealth of ideas and the experience to find the right technical solution for our clients. For the owner this creates cost security, and often results in cost savings as well; on the other hand, for the contractor this may well generate a crucial competitive edge.

Often, however, it is “only” a question of assessing the geotechnical risks associated with a particular construction measure and the planned method of construction, in order to avoid later “surprises” during execution.

Technical equipment

Whether this involves tunnels or bridges, toll highways or subway lines, airports or offshore wind farms: for all of our services our expertise also extends to the related technical equipment. Our MEP engineers complement our portfolio right down to the last electrical and mechanical detail.

Here we particularly focus on the sensitive interfaces between civil works and MEP trades—a field which today is very often decisive for success in realizing and commissioning major infrastructure projects.

Design and project management

Today tight timeframes in project realization are not unusual, but rather the rule. Here ensuring that deadlines are met first of all requires detailed sequence planning, beginning with the design itself (= “design planning”). This is the only way to reliably prepare and control the realization and commissioning of today’s construction projects.

We are used to dealing with these particular challenges. Not least because we have frequently taken over and implemented design management for HOCHTIEF on many major infrastructure projects at home and abroad, so that construction measures can be realized punctually and in accordance with requirements. Today we often incorporate this particular competence, when we cooperate on projects with external partners. Naturally, we are also happy to take over the task of design management directly on the client side—right through to project control tasks.

Design Review & Project Engineering

Out of the decades of involvement in HOCHTIEF bid projects—from the development of alternative proposals—and similarly through on-site design and engineering tasks, we have evolved an enormous potential for ideas related to potential savings and optimizations. This means that as a matter of principle the optimization of construction costs and construction processes is an important part of our work. In the course of “Quick Checks” we show you general saving potential, check the design or parts thereof for efficiency or provide support for you as an independent checking engineer with a special focus on cost reduction. Naturally as part of such Design Reviews other aspects such as quality, buildability and conformance with standards are also closely examined.

Internationality

Thanks to HOCHTIEF’s global presence, we are able to utilize project experience from more than 50 countries on all continents and hence offer our services virtually everywhere in the world. The majority of our employees speak English, and almost all other world languages are represented.

But it isn’t just languages that matter: the majority of the employees have their own international project experience and can also confidently operate in other cultural environments. Because this is often the key to success when it comes to realizing “Consulting made in Germany” on international projects.

Dr. Erol Erdem

HOCHTIEF Engineering GmbH, Consult Infrastructure
Alfredstraße 236
D-45133 Essen
Tel.: +49 201 824-2431
consult@hochtief.de