Management of a Highway Pavement for Subsidence Impacts from Longwall Mining

Henk Buys, AECOM

The first of a number of planned longwalls directly beneath a freeway, southwest of Sydney has been completed. After a lengthy planning period, the risks to the highway pavement were successfully managed by the road authority, the mining company and a Technical Committee including specialists in the fields of pavement engineering, geotechnical engineering and subsidence. This presentation provides information about how the measures to manage the potential impacts on the pavement were researched, developed and successfully implemented during mining. The techniques are believed to be a “world first” and included the use of pavement slots, extensive monitoring including optical fibre pavement sensors and on call response procedures.

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