Outstanding International Project of the Year: WestConnex M4-M5 Link Tunnels

The American Shotcrete Association (ASA) recognized the WestConnex M4-M5 Link Tunnels project in Sydney, Australia with its Outstanding International Shotcrete Project of the Year award!

These awards recognize excellence and innovation in projects where shotcrete placement played a significant role.

The M4-M5 Link Tunnels are 7.5-kilometre long twin tunnels, each wide enough to accommodate four lanes of traffic. The tunnels are part of the new 33-kilometer (20-mile) Westconnex Motorway currently under construction which when complete, will help to ease congestion.

Jacobs, in a design joint venture with Aurecon, provided detailed design and construction phase services on the project for Acciona Bouygues Samsung Joint Venture. The tunnels have a 100-year design life, so the team used high-performance shotcrete to compensate for potential capacity loss in the long term, including against fire events. The team applied more than 250,000 m3 (250 million+ liters) of steel-fiber reinforced shotcrete in the project. And, we used high-performance fibers in the structural design to improve the load-bearing capacity of the permanent tunnel linings, providing up to 6x greater capacity than traditional methods. At the time, the project was the first to use high-performance steel fibers in sprayed concrete in Australia.

The team also reduced the quantity of shotcrete required by around 20% based on initial calculations, resulting in cost savings and reduced embedded carbon emissions associated with the project.

Congratulations to the entire team on their Outstanding International Shotcrete Project of the Year award and for helping better connect Sydney.