Title: Port Botany Expansion – Achieving a 100 Year Design Life in a Harsh Marine Environment

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Publication: CIA

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Date: 2/28/2011

Abstract:
The Port Botany Expansion Project is a major expansion of the existing container terminal and port on the north east corner of Botany Bay, Sydney. The expansion will provide five new berths for large container ships as well as tug berths, civil works and road works and 63 ha of reclamation for hardstand container storage. A significant component of the project is 1.85 km of reinforced concrete quay walls. This paper focuses on the design methodologies developed to achieve a design life of 100 years for the quay walls, in a changing operational, physical, commercial and construction environment. The use of chloride diffusion modelling on a concrete with high fly ash and blast furnace slag content binders has provided a high level of assurance that reinforcement covers and concrete mix are appropriate for the exposure classification. Detailed steel serviceability stress and crack width analysis has ensured that cracking is kept within recognised limits in order to mitigate crack induced corrosion of the reinforcement. A beneficial outcome of the concrete mix design is the reduction in the quantities of Portland cement by the use of reused materials (fly ash and slag), thereby decreasing the carbon impact of the project.