Retrieval of bore head under the Eastern Freeway (by hand)

An unaffiliated contractor had been engaged by a local council to pipe jack (a process where a laser guided bore rig tunnels through the ground) a storm water pipe under the Eastern Freeway, the contractors unfortunately came up against a rock causing the rig to jam. Given this particular project the only way out was to either smash through the rock (not an option) or to dig an 8 meter deep hole in the centre of the Eastern Freeway to retrieve the bore rig head (also not an option)

This was when Ultimate Civil Infrastructure was engaged- few contractors in Victoria have the capability to conduct this dangerous type of project, but we are always up for a challenge.

The first step was to construct an entry shaft located 9m below the eastern freeway-  providing a safe access point. Given the depth it was impossible to use heavy machinery to tunnel under the freeway- we had no other option but to use jack hammers and hand tunnel 18 meters under the freeway to retrieve the bore head.

Along the way we needed a quick & easy solution to removal soil, we constructed a rail way track system to continually transfer the soil out which it was the loaded into a kibble and lifted out the shaft entry point with an excavator. Hats off to the team we estimate 300 cubic meters of soil was removed, by hand.

Ground Encountered: Large boulders & fill

Time to complete project: 4 weeks

Plant Used: 24t tonne excavator to lift a kibble to retrieve boulders and fill that had been jack hammered out

Amazingly, this caused absolutely no disruption to traffic on the freeway.