W2B Pacific Highway Upgrade - Section 8, 9 &
Mororo Bridges—Woodburn, New South Wales
Project Overview
The Pacific Highway Upgrade between Woolgoolga to Ballina (W2B) in northern NSW involved the duplication of approximately 155 kilometres of the national highway to a four-lane divided road.
JF Hull Holdings was awarded a Construct Only Contract by Transport NSW to construct 23 bridges between Iluka and Broadwater (Portion B/C Sections 8&9 + Mororo Bridge). The bridges were positioned over a mixture of large water ways, environmentally sensitive waterways and floodways.
The total combined length of all the bridges equalled approximately 1,520 linear meters.
Principal: Transport for NSW
Delivery Partner: Pacific Complete
Principal’s Contact: Jeff Boylan
Project Director: Clayton Smith
Project Foreman: Dave Prouten
Date Commenced: July 2017
Date Completed: November 2019
Contract Value: $39,568,064
Contract Value at Completion: $69,904,490
Scope of Works:
The access to the various bridge sites and associated working platforms were provided by the client.
Bridge piling was excluded from our scope and precast elements were supplied by the client. JF Hull installed a total of 84 precast abutment & headstocks beams, each weighing in excess of 50 tonnes.
Approximately 8,700 m3 of concrete was poured for remaining in-situ substructures including abutments, headstocks and piers. Pre-tensioned precast concrete deck units were utilised and comprised a total of 100 Super T girders and 331 winged deck planks.
Largest precast elements installed were a 78t precast headstock which was installed at a lifting radius of 73m by a 750T crawler crane with a maxer. All decks were cast in-situ concrete and finished with a mechanical truss screed. A total of 625 precast parapets were installed on the bridges and connected to the deck via in-situ concrete ‘stitch’ pours. JF Hull also completed the bridge approach works which included general fill and gravel pavement layers from underside of sill beam to underside of foamed bitumen and AC layers.
Project Outcomes and Performance
Bespoke Construction Solutions
Due to challenging site conditions JF Hull adopted its custom made falsework bridge which was installed over the Clarence River North Arm to construct bridge B08.
This system allowed multiple contractors to be concurrently work on different elements of bridge construction with heavy construction equipment in a safe environment.
Collaboration & Interface with Other Contractors
The horizontal packaging strategy adopted by RMS required multiple contractors on site at any given time.
This required extensive and continuous coordination of works to ensure unhindered access to the bridge sites with minimal disruption and impacts to the bridge works.
Health & Safety
JF Hull worked closely with the Pacific Complete to implement various safety initiatives and campaigns. These included the Separate Yourself campaign which focused on plant and people movement and separation on site. There was a significant focus on monitoring high risk activities through Fatal and Severe Risk (FSR) audits and Key Deliverable inspections. Various work activities and practices were reviewed and improved by project team members via Collective Insight workshops which involved engaging with work crews to facilitate discussions around making the workplace safer. Constant feedback from site and the workforce was encouraged through leadership works and the formation and implementation of Pit Crew membership and meetings.
“BHA have continued to perform well and have managed the demobilization process excellently over the last number of months, ensuring a focus on field and leadership engagement and keeping their work crews focus on risk identification and appropriate controls.”
– Jeff Boylan, Principals Authorised Person, 03/02/2020
Environmental Management
Five of the twin bridge sites are located over the habitat for the protected Oxleyan Pygmy Perch (OPP).
Due to the endangered status of the OPP there were Minster Conditions restricting construction time frames to outside of the OPP breeding season and additional work restrictions during the remaining times. All bridge construction was achieved without incident, as well as approval by the EPA to continue construction of the bridges into the breeding season due to the exemplary construction practices undertaken.
Aboriginal Participation in Construction
JF Hull were able to successfully exceed the contractual target indigenous spend (> $0.58M) for the project by almost 60% again the required spend. This was achieved through engagement with local indigenous owned businesses and employment and training of local indigenous staff and labour.