MORWELL TUNNELS – BURIED ARCH CULVERT UNDER VERY HIGH FILL
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Hey, my name is irwanbee, and I first published 'MORWELL TUNNELS – BURIED ARCH CULVERT UNDER VERY HIGH FILL' on 21st October, 2009, within the precast section.
MORWELL TUNNELS –DESIGN OF A BURIED ARCH CULVERT UNDER VERY HIGH FILL
The Morwell River Diversion project in the Latrobe Valley requires the construction of four conveyor tunnels to carry the main coal conveyors for the Morwell power station under more than 40 metres of fill. They are believed to be the deepest and longest conveyor tunnels constructed under fill in Australia. Reinforced Earth successfully tendered for the design and supply of the tunnels with a precast concrete arch design based on their TechSpan system. The contract required the design of a complete system, including raft foundations and waterproofing. In addition to very high fill loads the design was required to allow for very high settlements and the possible presence of acidic soils.
This paper describes the arch design process, which included both two and three dimensional finite-element analysis for the arch cross section design, and to check the effect of differential longitudinal loading and foundation conditions. The effect of many alternative ground improvement options was considered, in order to optimise the foundation design. The final design was developed after the award of the contract and used three different options, depending on the ground and weather conditions at the time of construction. The following information is presented in the paper:
• Comparison of bending moments and forces in the adopted arch profile with alternative profiles.
• Comparison of foundation bending moments and forces for different raft cross-sections and foundation treatments.
• Comparison of alternative analysis methods for the raft foundations
• Comparison of settlement analysis results with analyses carried out by the project primary designers (SMEC Australia).
Doug Jenkins, Interactive Design Services Pty Ltd, Chris Lawson, Reinforced Earth Pty. Ltd.
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