Japans four major islands, Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku are covered by an extensive and reliable network of railways. Kyushu is Japan’s third largest island, located southwest of the main island Honshu. One large embankment in Oita Prefecture, Kyushu, is located over one of Japan Railways main lines.

The embankment became unstable due to long term weathering of the soil and finally in October 2004 because of heavy rains a landslide occurred which led to the closure of the main line. A solution was required to rehabilitate this embankment quickly and competently.

The works were made more difficult because of the sites isolation and height of over 50 metres. Both scaling and shotcrete operations had to be carried out from the top of the embankment.

Because of the sites isolation and difficult access, shotcrete was batched using a mobile batching plant at the top of the embankment. Once the surface had been prepared it was sprayed with BarChip reinforced shotcrete dosed at 9kg/m3. No other reinforcement was used to stabilise the embankment and the railway line was quickly reopened, minimising delays to the network.

“Barchip was the only reinforcement used to stabilise the embankment”

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