ALBION PARK RAIL BYPASS

Roads and Maritime Services, New South Wales were looking at constructing a Bypass between Yallah and Oak Flats to bypass the Albion Park Rail suburb. The project was funded by The NSW Government, forecasted to be a $630 million project.

When completed, the bypass would be removing the ‘missing link’ between Sydney and Bomaderry.

The subgrade condition warranted the use of geosynthetics to speed up the construction process including Bidim geotextile for a drainage blanket, Prefabricated Vertical Drains (PVDs) for accelerating the consolidation process and TenCate PET high strength geotextile for improving the stability of embankments.

A total of 142,500m² of Tencate Mirafi PET high-strength geotextile over six grades, 450,000m2 of Bidim geotextile over five grades and 250,000 lineal metres of Alidrain were installed by Fulton Hogan with support provided by Geofabrics.

The ongoing construction of the 9.8 km extension of the Princes Motorway between Yallah and Oak Flats bypassing Albion Park Rail allowed the removal of numerous heavy vehicles passing the suburban streets. To make the vehicle movements more efficient, 13 bridges will also be constructed.

All the bridge approaches are supported by high quality TenCate Mirafi PET high-strength geotextile. TenCate Mirafi PET products are made from high tenacity polyester yarn offering exceptional stress/strain behavior with low creep effects, long term properties for performance over the lifetime of the structure and longer rolls including custom made sizes to facilitate ease of installation.

This is just one of the iconic projects by Fulton Hogan to accelerate the construction process by using different geosynthetics in major highway construction. Products offered by Geofabrics are high quality and meet RMS specification. Geofabrics also offered Quality Assurance certificates to ensure the process was without delay.

Geofabrics worked closely with the project engineers of Fulton Hogan to finalise the supply schedule of different geosynthetics products and supplied on time which further avoided any delay in construction. The Bypass estimated to be complete in 2022, will improve the efficient movement of freight, locals and tourists, save up to 30% of travel time and increase overall road capacity.

PRODUCT USED

Solmax Mirafi® PET High Strength Woven Geotextile

• High long term design strength with low creep effects
• Enables optimum embankment height over a minimum area and steeper side slopes
• Increase in construction speed with no loss of stability
• High Strength - with grades from 100kN/m to 2,000kN/m
• Long term properties for proven performance over the lifetime of the structure as its used in the most complex infrastructure projects in the world