John O’Donovan

John O’Donovan is a chartered engineer with 10 years’ experience. He is the head of the Structures sector and leads the soil-structure interaction team. John specialises in the design of complex foundation systems in urban environments.

In recent years, John has been responsible for the design of over a hundred foundation projects. John has completed forensic engineering projects investigating failures and issues related to retaining wall systems. This work has included an ultimate limit state failure of a Diaphragm wall and a serviceability failure of a Diaphragm wall in Abu Dhabi. John also acted as lead author on CIRIA C794 “Grouted anchors and soil nails: inspection, condition assessment and remediation”.

John is familiar with a wide range of retaining wall designs from contiguous, secant piled walls, king-posts, reinforced earth, soil nailed solutions, and diaphragm walls. From a design perspective, John is intimately familiar with analytical, empirical, and numerical design approaches. John is currently acting as Temporary Works Engineer on a number of large-scale civil engineering projects utilising his expertise in piling platform design, trench box design and cofferdam design.