Field Behaviour Of Fill Structures On The South West Rail Link

This paper provides a summary of the instrumentation and monitoring program implemented during the Glenfield Transport Interchange component of the South West Rail Link. Works included the construction of reinforced soil walls and fill embankments up to 9 m in height as part of the connection alignment between the existing East Hills Line and the Glenfield to Leppington rail line. The key challenge in the region was meeting the stringent long term settlement criteria specified by RailCorp. This was managed by preloading of the fill embankments, staged construction and a detailed instrumentation program which included inclinometers, magnetic extensometers, vibrating wire piezometers and settlement plates. Ongoing monitoring of retaining wall and embankment performance during construction allowed for confirmation of design estimates and management of preloading time periods. This paper provides a comparison of the predicted and actual ground behaviour, together with a discussion of the effectiveness of the techniques employed.