Geotechnical Aspects of the Port Geographe development

Geoffrey Cocks

Port Geographe is a residential canal development and marina located a few kilometres east of Busselton in Western Australia. Much of the development is located over dune sand and estuarine deposits. Extensive use has been made of surcharge preloading as a foundation improvement technique to treat the organic silt that underlies much of the site. The paper describes the process used to design and monitor the effectiveness of the surcharge preloading, the site classification system developed to convey to the Shire of Busselton and to Structural Engineers what the footing requirements are, stability analysis of canal edge walls, the use of Laterite rock for breakwaters and rip rap, the design of temporary bunds and use of soak wells and subsoil drains.

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