Overview

The Adelaide Street tunnel is a critical piece of the Brisbane Metro project that provides additional capacity to Brisbane’s public transport system but requires the construction of a new road only 3.5m below the existing roadway.

This presentation will describe the need for the tunnel and the constraints of complex geology, buried services, traffic loading, adjacent heritage structures, and a demanding construction program with very little support site area. The presentation will describe how these challenging constraints have been met, including the design and construction of a relatively large span soft ground tunnel, which involves over 20km of canopy tubes and 19kms of fiberglass face nails installed in a complex construction sequence to minimise surface movements and provide sufficient space for the final bidirectional tunnel. The presentation will also include a brief update of construction progress.

In this presentation, you will learn:

• what drives shallow tunnelling over cut and cover

• how typical urban constraints can be overcome to successfully design and execute a shallow soft ground tunnel.

Event program

In-person: 

• 5:30pm AEST: Arrival and registrations open.

• 6:00pm AEST: Presentation commences.

• 7:00pm AEST: Presentation concludes.

• 7:00pm AEST: Networking commences.

Online: 

• 6:00pm AEST: Presentation commences.

• 7:00pm AEST: Presentation concludes.

Who should attend?

Tunnelling engineers and those interested in this space.

About the speakers

Henry Unwin FIEAust CPEng
Principal Project Manager at Brisbane City Council

After graduating from Portsmouth Polytechnic in 1984, he started work with Taylor Woodrow Construction working on projects in the industrial, commercial, wastewater, and nuclear projects across the UK, and the renovation and extension of the Hunghom Rail Terminus in Kowloon (with 100,000 passengers per day commuting through the construction works). Henry migrated to Australia in 2008 and worked as Engineering Manager on a number of major infrastructure projects including Brisbane Airport Domestic Terminal Expansion; Sydney Metro; Darwin, Gladstone and Broome LNG projects; Surat Basin Rail and a major 100Ml/d Water Treatment Plant. Henry is currently Principal Project Manager Infrastructure Design & Assurance on Council’s Brisbane Metro project.

Russell Connors
Senior Project Engineer, Acciona

Russell Connors is a Senior Project Engineer who has worked on several technically challenging and complex tunnelling projects across Australia and Singapore. Russell’s experience includes Earth Pressure Balance and Slurry Shield Tunnel Boring Machines operating in dense urban environments. Russell is currently involved with the planning and execution of the Adelaide Street Tunnel through the heart of Brisbane CBD, a soft ground mined tunnel with extremely low ground cover close to heritage listed and sensitive structures. Originating from Melbourne, Australia, Russell graduated from RMIT University with a Bachelor of Civil Engineering and Infrastructure. Russell has also received several awards from Australian and Singaporean tunnelling societies recognising his technical expertise.

Silvia Ferrero MIEAust CPEng NER
Geotechnical Engineer at Arup

Silvia is a geotechnical engineer in Arup with over 20 years’ experience in the design and delivery of small to large scale projects, from concept design to detailed design. Silvia completed her engineering studies in Italy, and then moved to the UK where she worked as junior engineer for 4 years, before joining Arup in the Milan office and then moving to Brisbane in 2011. Silvia’s experience is mostly focused on design and review of geotechnical aspects within multidisciplinary projects, including infrastructure and building projects. For Brisbane Metro, Silvia led the geotechnical and structures team, developing the geotechnical interpretation of the ground conditions and geotechnical design.