Geotechnical investigation, Bruce Highway, Queensland, Australia

The Bruce Highway Cooroy to Curra project in Queensland is a realignment and upgrade of 65 km of the Bruce Highway through rolling terrain separating long-distance traffic from local traffic. The four-lane highway project includes 26 bridges as well as numerous cuttings and infill zones.

PSM was engaged to provide geotechnical site investigation services to the Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR) for its business case and preliminary design phases of the project. 

The project required drilling on private and public land resulting in the need for careful interaction with landowners and tenants as well as the public.

Engineering and technical opportunities included:

• Working on remote access sites with little cleared space
• Difficult drilling conditions including highly fractured rock masses, fill deposits, requiring various drilling and sampling techniques.

Following rigorous assessment and modelling, PSM’s tailored approach included:

• Drilling of more than 40 boreholes across approximately 30 km of predominantly greenfield alignment including sampling of soil and rock logging and in-situ testing in line with TMR specifications
• Management of health and safety and instrumentation installation
• Provision of input into likely implications for cutting stability, rippability and/or foundation strength, and recommendations for future geotechnical investigations
• Adoption of TMR guidelines and specifications for geotechnical logging, sampling and monitoring instrumentation installation
•  Completion of regular review workshops to ensure clients’ needs were met
• In conjunction with TMR field officers, management of investigation works to ensure public and private landholders were not adversely affected.

PSM successfully interacted with multiple landowners and other stakeholders to complete site investigation.

Services: #rock logging #Soil logging #soil sampling