Sprayed Concrete Lining Falls and Exclusion Zone Management

Summary

Falling ground or immature concrete within sprayed concrete lined tunnels is a major safety risk to personnel, which has complex inter-relationships of design, workmanship, plant and materials contributing to any single event. With experience of over 12km of SCL tunnelling on Crossrail in London, this paper describes the structures, sequencing and construction methods used across the whole project, and presents the summary data from all recorded falls experienced by multiple contractors. Observations are made on the safety critical aspects of minimising falls as experienced on this project, and guidance on controlling access around high risk areas presented. Information is also provided on improvements that could be made on future projects for data capture and assessment to further minimise the risk of falls occurring.