Many engineers put pressure on themselves to get it right all the time, but failure is inevitable as an engineer and it’s what you do in response that counts.

The main objective of this webinar is to study the case histories that illustrate what went wrong, why it went wrong, and how to avoid similar tragedies and learn lessons for future prevention. It will also reinforce the idea that continuous improvement is the key to reduce risk in Tunnelling.

This webinar will cover three projects from different dimensions:

1. Burney Tunnel Project (Melbourne City Link) by Ed Taylor
2. Lane Cove Tunnel by Brendan Donohue
3. Dundas Road Sinkhole Incident by Eric Hudson Smith

5.30 – 5.35 pm – Introduction to event & speakers
5.35 – 6.20 pm – Presentations
6.20 – 6.30 pm – Q&A
6.30 – 7.00 pm – Networking (Sydney office only)

Speakers

Ed Taylor
Engineering Support (Tunnelling), John Holland

Ed is a Charted Professional Engineer, a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, and past President of the Australian Tunnelling Society.

His tunnelling experience commenced in Melbourne’s sewer and water construction boom period of the early 70’s during the innovative period of hard rock TBM development. This experience lead to a period on the Thomson Dam tunnel works in the early 80’s and then to the Melbourne City Link Road Project, the first in Australia utilising large road headers. This was the first of four major road tunnels where he was employed in engineering management roles for the contractor. Other notable recent projects were Downtown Line Contract 935, Singapore and North West Rail Link, and the Melbourne Metro project in Melbourne.

Ed’s experience on various infrastructure tunnels has enabled him to develop a unique range of technical competencies for which he is well renowned. Over the years he has fine-tuned the balance between the technical requirements of large civil infrastructure projects and the practical needs of construction requirements.

Brendan Donohue
Consultant, Donohue Consulting Pty Limited

After being employed by Thiess Pty Ltd for almost 20 years Brendan is now self-employed and offering his services to the building and civil construction industry.

In this consulting role since 2014 Brendan has undertaken many assignments on most of the major Infrastructure projects in NSW. These projects include Westconnex Stage 1B, Moorebank Intermodal, Northern Beaches Hospital, Canberra Light Rail, New Intercity Train Maintenance Facility, Parramatta High School and the Meadowbank High Schools and BMA’s Blackwater Coal Mine. More recently, he assisted a medium size Services contracting company in its purchase of another Services company.

The roles undertaken have covered the full scope of project services from Project documentation, Tender preparation and evaluation, project delivery and project completion on the client’s side, the Project Manager’s team and the Construction team. Since February 2020, Brendan has been the Chairman of the Board of Directors for Lipman Group Holdings Pty Ltd, a NSW based building company.

Eric Hudson-Smith
Consulting Geotechnical Engineer, Geosite Pty Ltd

Eric Hudson-Smith has a Master’s Degree in Engineering and over 40 years’ experience on a wide range of projects in Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Singapore, Mongolia and Iran. He has worked on soft ground tunnelling projects for both Owners and Contractors at various stages of feasibility, tender document preparation, tendering, design, construction, claims, litigations and operating tunnel maintenance in Singapore, New Zealand and Australia.

Projects have included bored and cut and cover tunnels, microtunnels, pipejacks and HDD projects, cross passages and deep shafts for road, rail, sewerage, materials handling, power and water supply schemes. He was Chair of the WA Chapter and Deputy National Chair, Australian Tunnelling Society, 2004-2015 and has been an active committee member since.