West Gate Tunnel

Integrated geotechnical, structural and environmental monitoring with real-time wireless data, safeguarding delivery and compliance for Victoria’s $6.7B West Gate Tunnel Project

About West Gate Tunnel

The Victorian Government has partnered with Transurban to deliver the $6.7 Billion West Gate Tunnel Project, which will give Melbourne a second freeway link between the west and the city. The West Gate Tunnel Project will end Melbourne’s reliance on the West Gate Bridge by building a new tunnel and new links to the port, Citylink and the City.
The project involves building four more lanes on the West Gate Freeway, twin tunnels under Yarraville and a new bridge over the Maribyrnong River that links to an elevated road above Footscray Road. The tunnel section will be built with 2 TBM’s – Bella and Vida – of 15.6 meters in diameters. Work will start on the 4 kilometre outbound tunnel first, closely followed by the 2.8 kilometre inbound tunnel. The longer tunnel will take around 18 months to dig.

Challenges & Solutions

Sixense has been awarded the comprehensive monitoring of the tunnel section (Geotechnical, Structural & Environmental) that has been further extended to the two other sections – freeway & bridge – for environmental monitoring. To read the instrumentation, a site-wide radio network has been established and used in conjunctions of wireless self powered dataloggers. This solution allows for collecting data in real time from any geotechnical or environmental sensors in the most cost effective and reliable way.
For structure and deformation monitoring the well known Cyclops (enhanced and patented Automatic Total Station) is deployed again to monitor with prisms the 3D deformation of retaining walls & structures and reflectorless for the settlement of critial roads.
In terms of monitoring, the West Gate Tunnel is a strong reference, by the scope of the instrumentation, quantities and content of reports requested by our client.
More than ever it is a demonstration that the monitoring is the center point of information for stakeholders for managing risks.