During Shanghai ICE sales team visit to the Netherlands we visited a large combi-wall harbor project in the Port of Zeeland. Here an 800-meter-long quay is being built in the Quarleshaven. The job is challenging because of heavy driving conditions in clay soils, and also because the new quay wall is installed in the place of an earlier quay wall that is now being demolished and the soil is compacted from years of use. The quay design is future proofed, it can be further excavated for future needs. The load for the quay is 5 tons per square meter. 

The new quay, which connects to an existing quay, creates a quay with a total length of 1200. Various types of seagoing vessels with a draft of up to 14.5 meters can moor there, as can inland vessels. The new quay will be used for the transshipment of dry bulk goods: raw materials, organic agricultural products, as well as for rubble stones that are used for the reinforcement of offshore wind turbines.

The quay wall consists of 240 tube piles, interspersed with AZ-700 sheet piles, secured by 600 screw injection anchors. The tube piles were installed first with the help of a guide frame. The tubes are 38m long 1800mm diameter casings were pre-piled with a leader guided 50RF fitted with 4 clamps. The 1600PP was mounted on the back of the crane. An IHC-280 hydraulic hammer was used to drive the tubes to depth.

The AZ-700 piles were 29m long, the AZ pairs were not crimped together allowing them to be individually driven and extracted to help them go down. A lance added high pressure water jetting to aid the liquefaction of the soil. The client had chosen to drive the AZ piles with a 50RF mounted with a single clamp and powered by a 1600PP, so the vibration forces where not well centered on the interlocks. For this project the contractors chose to monitor the integrity of the pile wall with Arcelor Mittal’s Dixeran® Declutching Detectors, this is a declutching detector system for the interlocks of the steel sheet piles, it monitors the integrity of retaining walls. The sensors are installed in the bottom of the sheet pile interlock and give a signal when the sheet piles run out of the interlock.

A consortium made up of Werkendam-based construction companies Hakkers and De Klerk are responsible for the construction of the new quay which was designed by WSP. The quay will be ready by late 2024. Get in touch to benefit from our team’s international application knowledge, we are eager to help you succeed in your harbor construction projects.

Read more:

https://hakkers.com/staalbouw/nieuwe-kade-quarleshaven-vlissingen/ 

https://www.deklerkbv.nl/nl/projecten/waterbouw/zeevaartkade-quarleshaven-vlissingen-oost/

https://www.wsp.com/en-hk/projects/design-800-metres-long-quay-in-the-quarleshaven-in-vlissingen

https://sheetpiling.arcelormittal.com/news/dixeran-declutching-detector/

https://en.northseaport.com/construction-of-new-quay-at-quarleshaven-in-vlissingen-underway