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Landsborough Highway Rehabilitation – Barcaldine to Longreach
Fast facts
geographical project span
people onsite in 1 day at its peak
total man hours record
Aboriginal employment
satisfaction of local community who responded
road constructed or rehabilitated
About
This project was for extensive repair and rehabilitation works, which included road reconstruction, shoulder reconstruction and pavement patching across two sites of the Landsborough Highway. The first site was a 51km stretch of highway between Barcaldine and Longreach, with works consisting of widening the road, as well as a full reconstruction and realignment, including construction of a side track for diverted traffic. Additional works included 24km of outer wheel path treatment, the rehabilitation of 38 floodways and the extension of 33 existing drainage lines.
The second site between Augathella and Tambo included 16km of road widening, full rehabilitation of the current alignment, 500m of shoulder replacements and construction of a side track.
A key challenge on this rehabilitation project was the approximately 75km of side tracks that were required to be constructed in poor structural black soil areas. Early site conditions and heavy rainfall soon demonstrated the initial design (150mm local gravel wearing course) was unsuitable for the conditions. As such the Bouygues-Seymour Whyte Joint Venture, investigated a number of alternate treatment options including stabilisation with lime and general purpose (GP) cement at various proportions. After a number of stabilising trials, the approach that proved most sufficient was the addition of GP cement at low concentrations (2–3%) followed by application of a seal directly to the surface. Over 400,000m2 of side-track was constructed using this method; in addition to it proving structurally adequate for the necessary service time, it also resulted in a saving of $1.5m.


