Heavily Loaded Rock Foundations – Ting Kau Bridge
Geo-Design staff were responsible for supervision of construction of geotechnical aspects of the Ting Kau Bridge – a HK$1.73 billion, 1.1km long cable stayed structure, and the associated approach viaducts and substantial earthworks.
Key aspects of the services included:
- Detailed Design review and check (Geo-Design staff also acted as part of the Design Check team within the Highways Department)
- Supervision of geotechnical elements of construction, including heavily loaded foundations on rock
- Reclamation and seawall construction
- Formation of high rock slopes
Key features of the project:
- Geotechnical works included excavation of over 2km of >50m high slopes adjacent to a live highway, and a specialised temporary rockfall protection system was designed for the project.
- Approach structures were founded on over 100 hand dug caissons with up to 5m rock sockets some situated in 45° slopes, which required detailed inspection and rock quality mapping.
- The three towers of the main bridge were founded on two pad footings (4000m3 each) and a piled raft on 52 bored cast in situ 2.3m diameter piles.
- Ship protection structures were constructed around each of the towers, requiring underwater blasting dredging, reclamation (including wick drains, vibro compaction, CPTs and geotechnical monitoring), seawall and pre-cast cofferdam construction.
