The new passenger railway station in Jubail Industrial City will serve Jubail 1 industrial area, Jubail 2 industrial area and link Jubail city with the current rail network for both freight movement and passenger travel.

The main features of the project are:

§  A main station building, pedestrian tunnel, platforms on retaining walls and earthworks slopes.

§  Parking, access roads, ticketing facilities, guard house, fuel and generator facilities, and underground pump tanks.

§  A diversion of the existing rail track into the new station and provision for future facilities (e.g. fire station).

Key technical outcomes of Anber’s work included:

• Characterisation of challenging ground conditions: loose to very loose sabkha sands overlying stiff/hard silts and clays, with a high groundwater table within 1–2 m of ground level and associated liquefaction risk.
• Identification that, in the natural ground, settlements for major structures (station, service building, tunnel, main retaining wall) would exceed allowable limits and that some foundations did not meet required factors of safety in bearing capacity.
• Development of allowable bearing pressures for each structure (with and without ground improvement) to guide structural design.
• Design of 9m high retaining walls for platform support
• Slope stability analysis to confirm safe embankment slopes meet the required factors of safety when protected with 200 mm aggregate erosion protection.
• Practical recommendations for excavation and dewatering in loose, saturated soils, including guidance for deep excavations at the underground pump tank and measures to manage buoyancy.

Overall, the study provided a clear, risk-based geotechnical framework that enables safe, buildable foundations, stable earthworks, and durable pavements for the station development.

Anber’s scope of work included:

§  Reviewing and integrating two geotechnical investigation campaigns (36 boreholes, in-situ testing, extensive lab testing) into a coherent ground model and geological cross-sections for all key structures and earthworks.

§  Defining design soil parameters, settlement and bearing capacity correlations, and acceptance criteria, based on international best practice and Royal Commission (RC) standards.

§  Performing detailed bearing capacity and settlement analyses for major and minor foundations, and summarising performance against agreed criteria.

§  Developing a ground improvement strategy and performance specification (stone column zones, target settlements, bearing pressures, angular distortion limits) suitable for tendering to specialist contractors.

§  Providing design recommendations for roads, car parks and earthworks, including fill types, compaction criteria, proof-rolling, and CBR requirements.

§  Supporting structural and civil design teams by supplying allowable bearing pressures, subgrade reaction moduli (Ks), and slope stability outputs for direct use in structural models and detailed design.

Through this assignment, Anber helped de-risk foundation and earthworks design on a challenging sabkha site, ensuring that the railway station can be constructed safely and perform reliably over its design life.