Hong Kong Airport Expansion Project

Upon completion of the expansion works, the Hong Kong International airport will be able to serve 30 million additional passengers annually.

The 20-billion USD airport expansion project essentially consists in the reclamation of 650 hectares of land north of the existing Hong Kong airport island, in building a 3.8-km long new runway with supporting taxiway systems, and in constructing a new runway passenger building.

The Hong Kong Airport expansion project, currently underway, involves major land reclamation works. These include constructing soil-cement columns using the Deep Cement Mixing (DCM) method. In order to evaluate the mechanical properties of these newly constructed columns, pressuremeter testing were undertaken.

Non-dredge methods, including the DCM, are used for reclamation. The DCM method consists in injecting and mixing cement into columns of the soft mud below a sand capping layer to increase its strength and stiffness, and allowing land formation above. This method was selected for minimising environmental impacts.

One technique used for evaluating the mechanical properties of these soil-cement columns is to carry out pressuremeter tests. These tests consist in introducing an expandable cylindrical probe into the pre-drilled columns, and to loading these ones up to failure.

These tests provide information on both the stiffness (shear modulus) and the strength of the columns, and this under in-situ conditions. . The results from these tests can be used in conjunction with data from other types of tests for controlling quality of the columns, and for predicting their future behavior when loaded. ROCTEST provided the PROBEX pressuremeter and training to carry out these tests.

Hong Kong Airport Expansion Project

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