SPbGASU student designed an automated underground parking

SPbGASU student designed an automated underground parking

How to expand the parking space in the city? Vyacheslav Polunin, a sixth-grade student of the SPbGASU Faculty of Civil Engineering, knows the answer to this pressing question. His graduation work, created under the scientific supervision of the head of the Department of Geotechnics Rashid A. Mangushev, is named “Construction of underground automated parking space under Vladimirskaya Square.”

Why did you choose exactly this part of the city?

— There are many offices and commercial enterprises there, but people have no place to park, and they leave their cars on the roadside in two rows. Parked cars significantly hamper traffic flow on the square. An underground automated parking space could have solved this problem.

— What is this about?

— I designed three separate structures. This is a significant plus, since the maintenance of three streams at once will minimize queues for entry and exit. Those who come to work, for shopping or just take a walk in the historic center of the city will be able to safely leave the car and mind their business. An attendant presses a button, the car goes down and gets into a cell.

— Why did you decide to choose this very topic?

— It all started with my hobby for cylinder caisson technology. In the fall of 2018, I listened a lecture on the architecture of underground structures, delivered by Dmitry A. Boytsov, the head of the architectural and construction department of the Lenmetrogiprotrans NIPII. And the idea to connect the theme of underground wells with the theme of automated underground parking fired my imagination. I came with it to Rashid Mangushev, who endorsed me.

— How did your work go?

— I collected information on stand-alone underground objects. This topic is insufficiently explored; there is not too much information on it. Anatoly I. Osokin, assistant professor of geotechnics at SPbGASU, helped me to collect geological data. Then I conducted a variable design and considered the feasibility of different design options in terms of their economic efficiency and manufacturability. I also reviewed the existing experience in order to decide whether it was possible to implement such a project in the conditions of St. Petersburg.

— Is it? What is your opinion?

— My calculations allow me to claim that it is doable but only in case of the use of tangential piles and not cylinder caissons or an underground wall. The fact is that compared with other technologies, tangential piles impact the surrounding soil mass, on its structure more sparingly. It is vital.

This area has very strict standards and requirements. Nevertheless, it is possible and necessary to build an underground automated parking in the conditions of weak St. Petersburg soils. A parking is needed, its benefits are quite obvious

Its operation will require only one technical engineer and one information network engineer. As part of the concept, on the surface it will be possible to put a bus stop or leave everything as it is. Underground automated parking is able to completely transform the look of Vladimirskaya Square and the entire city!

Text: Tatyana Petrova

✔ Learn more about the Department of Geotechnics,
its scientific activities and courses