Case Study
Crossrail Woolwich
2018 – 2021
– Project Description
The Crossrail Woolwich Station is located in the historic site of the Royal Arsenal. This new station is part of the redevelopment scheme which includes 3,750 new homes, along with new cultural, heritage, commercial and leisure quarters. The 276 metre long box station sits below a major housing development. It will have the capacity to service 56,000 passengers per day on up to 12 trains per hour on the Elizabeth line. This will allow passengers to travel all the way through to Paddington, Heathrow or Reading in the west and Abbey Wood in the east.
Our Involvement
Balfour Beatty appointed Clement Acoustics in 2018 to commission plant noise emissions of the station and associated North Woolwich, Plumstead and Connaught portals. The commissioning exercises were necessary to satisfy the requirements of the Local Authority and the Crossrail Bill’s D25 Information Paper. Commissioning was required for all external plant, including grilles and louvres and also through the external building fabric of the station and portals. The commissioning exercises were challenging due to the location of many of the grilles and louvres being at high level and the high surrounding background noise levels. For one of the surveys an acoustic camera was used to determine the location of noise emissions from a draft relief tower.
The station holds six Tunnel Ventilation System (TVS) fans. These fans are extremely large, with blades measuring in excess of two metres, each creating extremely high noise levels. As highlighted during the commissioning process, additional noise mitigation measures were needed to be developed for these fans. In order to develop this mitigation, several surveys were required. Many of the surveys required vibration monitoring with highly sensitive accelerometers and the recording of audio files for detailed post processing and analysis.