The Port of Brisbane’s future capacity to grow is supported by the 230-hectare Future Port Expansion (FPE) precinct on Fisherman Islands. The FPE is surrounded by a geotechnically engineered seawall and divided into a series of paddocks which are progressively being reclaimed over the long-term. The reclamation and site filling works are often undertaken by utilising Port of Brisbane Pty Ltd (PBPL) owned dredgers. Materials placed in these sites predominantly sourced from channel maintenance programs, which may include dark grey to black clay (mud) and clayey sand fill, as well as clean white sand dredged from Moreton Bay.

Due to the nature of geological settings and reclamation method adopted at FPE, significant settlement would occur during the design life of the subsequent infrastructure if no ground improvement works were undertaken.

Over the years, PBPL has adopted various ground improvement methods as part of the land development to remove the majority of the ground settlement such that the long-term settlement induced by the infrastructure design loads are manageable. Ground improvement methods adopted include conventional preloading, surcharging, surcharging with wick drains and vacuum consolidation.

This project is for the ground improvement works on approximately 10ha of land spanning across Paddock S3B and Paddock B1 at FPE.