Airbus made history with its decision to create an A320 Final Assembly Line in Mobile, Alabama. SES was proud to be a part of this historic $600-million facility. Along with serving as the Geotechnical Engineer of Record, our firm provided construction materials testing and special inspections under multiple contracts.

The half-million sq. ft. facility is comprised of nine buildings and several acres of heavy duty pavement and aircraft taxiway. The FAL-US is the first facility of its type for Airbus on US soil and, when operating at full capacity, has the ability to produce four Airbus A320 aircraft per month.

In support of the geotechnical design for the project, SES crews completed nearly two miles of Cone Penetration Testing (CPT) and conventional soil borings on a site accessible only to track-mounted equipment. In addition to the soft surface conditions that our CPT and drill crews had to contend with, design challenges included variation in pile bearing strata by as much as 30 feet within the same building, very strict pile settlement tolerances, the addition of up to 8 feet of fill over highly compressible soils, and groundwater as high as 10 feet above the bottom of the basements and media channels.

Upon fulfillment of our geotechnical contract, SES was again selected by Airbus and the Program Management Team (HOAR Program Management) to provide Construction Materials Testing (CMT) and Special Inspection Services for various subcontracts throughout construction.

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