Bridges

The West Gate Tunnel Project is one of Australia's largest infrastructure projects currently under construction and will provide Melbourne an alternative to the West Gate Bridge. With over 20 kilometres of bridge structures, including more than 6 kilometres of steel trough girder with composite concrete deck, the project necessitates innovative design and construction approaches.

This paper focuses on the development and implementation of an innovative deck panel solution for the steel trough girder bridges, addressing the unique challenges posed by the project's brownfield environment, tight boundaries, complex interfaces, and construction over water, live traffic, and rail corridors.

To optimise the design and meet the project's stringent constraints, the team needed to challenge conventional norms. The numerous bridges with varying superstructure arrangements, and significant deck cantilevers beyond the outer girder flange required a solution that could also adapt to different geometries and interface with shear stud/girder splice locations.

Drawing inspiration from international examples, a bespoke 'twin-rib' panel solution was developed. This innovative panel design addressed the project's specific requirements, including coordination with existing structures, temporary hoardings, edge protection, and the ability to work over water, live traffic, and rail. Ultimately, over 5000 individual panels were required to fulfill the project's scope across multiple suppliers and work sites concurrently.

This paper provides an overview of the challenges and successes encountered during the implementation of the bespoke panel arrangement in the West Gate Tunnel Project. It highlights the importance of collaborative efforts, adaptive design approaches, and effective coordination amongst stakeholders. The learnings and outcomes from this project contribute to advancing best practices in bridge construction, particularly in addressing unique constraints and delivering innovative solutions.