After Massive Road Collapse on the Wienzeile: Underground Holes are Being Filled

In September, road users discovered a large hole on the roadway of the Linke Wienzeile, into which a tour bus also slid. The incident prompted immediate inspections. It was revealed that there are cavities under the road in various places, which now need to be stabilized with cement suspensions.

After Large Hole in the Linke Wienzeile: Ground Investigations and Stabilization

The investigations showed that the ground beneath the roadway is loose in several places. Several small cavities were also detected. According to wien.orf.at, these cavities are now to be filled and stabilized. Josef Gottschall from Wien Kanal explained how this process works: “It is (…) a kind of concrete, very fluid. First, you drill a hole, then you insert an injection pipe into this hole, and through a mixing plant, we pump this liquid into the ground.”

The special mixture of the cement suspension fills the cavities under the ground and then solidifies. The surface is mostly worked on by machines controlled by a computer. In a nearby side street, the suspension is mixed and then transported via pumps through pipelines to the roadway, where it is directed into the ground through boreholes.

The injections require precise work. Gottschall compared the process to building a “layer cake” — only underground and on a much larger scale. “The hole is 15 meters deep. Every 30 centimeters, you build a round cake layer and stack them 15 meters high. For 30 centimeters of this layer, we need one hour.” The repair work is expected to be completed by mid-January. After that, all three lanes will be available to road users again, and the Linke Wienzeile will be fully reopened.

(Ed.)

This article has been automatically translated, read the original article here.