Construction— EMEA— Germany— Hydro & Marine Structures
The 2 nd Moselle Lock Chamber: DYWIDAG Strand Anchors help secure the Future of one of Germany’ s most important Waterways
From Koblenz in Germany to Neuves-Maisons in France, the navigable part of the Moselle River has a total length of over 390km and is the most heavily travelled inland waterway in Germany. Annually, more than 10,000 cargo ships navigate the Moselle; in the summer months, the river is also used by approximately 5,000 passenger ships.
Photos reprinted courtesy of GBS Grundbau Bohrtechnik Spezialtiefbau GmbH & Co. KG, Germany
With a current transport volume of 15 to 16 million tons per year, the locks have exceeded their capacity, which leads to long wait times. Furthermore, the repair work that has to be carried out on the more than 50 year old locks keep getting more extensive, resulting in full closures of 8 days per year.
To make the waterway sustainable and allow year-round navigation, 10 new locks are being built parallel to the existing lock systems from Koblenz to Trier. The new locks have a navigable length of 210m and a width of 12.5m and can therefore be used by larger ships.
The lock complex in Trier is the third system to be enlarged. The new lock chamber is being erected onshore next to the existing chamber as a monolithic reinforced concrete structure with a 3m thick base. The excavation needed for the new locks is being constructed directly next to the old locks. Therefore, a reinforced bored pile wall with double tie backs was necessary to stabilize the existing chamber.
The complete excavation for the locks is partly built as an overlap bored pile wall and partly as a sheet pile wall.
At the upper offshore terminal, the separating breakwater between the old and the new chamber was built as a bored pile wall supported by 4 layers of tie backs. The excavation sheet pile wall is also supported by 4 layers of tie backs, with the first layer employing horizontal tie rods and the other 3 layers using grouted anchors.
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