Projects

Neil Street Car Park (Toowoomba Bus Interchange) Structural Rectifications

Toowoomba Regional Council
Location: 
Toowoomba QLD
Australia
Consultant: 
Kehoe Myers
Date: 
May 2015 to Dec 2015

Neil Street Car Park (Toowoomba Bus Interchange) Structural Rectifications

Description: 

Constructed in 1989 and currently owned and operated by Toowoomba Regional Council, the Toowoomba Bus Station offers both local and long-distance bus services. The structure is made up of three levels, with the bus station on ground level and two levels of car parking.

The Toowoomba Council became aware of concrete spalling issues throughout the structure in 2005 and implemented a repair and inspection program to address the issues. Concrete defects continued to recur however, indicating that root causes of these defects may have been more complex than originally assumed. Further investigations were undertaken including structural checks of key elements which revealed a number of deficiencies in the existing structure. A resulting rehabilitation strategy was developed and implemented on-site by Freyssinet Australia.

 

Key Aspects: 
Investigation and diagnostics: site structural investigations and testing utilising ground penetrating radar to determine reinforcement distribution, concrete strength testing (in-situ and laboratory), structural design with analysis software, durability investigations through potential half-cell and resistivity surveys, corrosion rate monitoring, and chemical testing for carbonation and chloride contamination.
Structural strengthening: solutions utilising Freyssinet systems incorporating composite materials such as carbon fibre laminate, fabric and carbon fibre rod.
Concrete repair: remediation of spalled areas.
Replacement of slip joints: through lifting the slabs to enable slip joints to be installed based on installing jacking frames on the roof level. From each jack setup lifts were accomplished lifting one zone in a single operation.
Water stop engineering: sealing of water ingress and alleviation of surface ponding.