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Bridging over mining country
Running through a mining area near Sydney, the "Spring Farm" motorway is susceptible to ground subsidence throughout its service life. To provide robustness to major structures, mageba bridge bearings and expansion joints with large movement and rotational capacities are incorporated into the superstructure.
Mining is Australia is not limited to the most remote parts of the country, but takes place even close to major cities where highways must be constructed. In such cases, the highways must be built to accommodate any ground subsidence that may result from the mining activities – as was required, for example, in the case of the Spring Farm Parkway outside Sydney. The four-lane highway of Stage 1 crosses an area that will be subjected to longwall mining, so its main bridge structure had to be designed to accommodate large movements and rotations. Having supported the bridge designers from the project’s early stages, mageba went on to design, manufacture and test the required components. These included:
44 m of nine-gap TENSA®MODULAR expansion joint of type LR
22 m of nine-gap TENSA®MODULAR expansion joint of type LR-LS, featuring mageba’s special noise-reducing surfacing
27 m of single-gap TENSA®GRIP expansion joint of type RS
56 m of elastomeric bearing strips based on the LASTO®BLOCK Type F bearing, in 2-metre lengths
Were it not for the mining activity in the area, the bridge’s movements and rotations could have been facilitated by smaller, simpler bearings and expansion joints – but thanks to the expert support provided by mageba’s team in Sydney, the optimal solution could be developed to meet this structure’s special subsidence-related challenges.
Bridge designer: Jacobs
Owner: Transport for NSW
Contractor: Georgiou Group Pty Ltd
