diebautechnik | 2 - ThyssenKrupp Bautechnik

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That’s why it’s so beautiful along the Rhine!
226 metre long new embankment consolidation in the port of Duisburg
The port of Duisburg, Europe's second-largest
inland port, is booming. In the last business year,
the port's operator, the duisport Group, was able
to increase sales by 14 percent to just under Euro
42 million. The net profit before tax rose by 53
percent to Euro 2.3 million. The volume of traffic
increased to 39.4 million tonnes of goods (up six
percent) in 2003. The board of management of
Duisburger Hafen AG is particularly pleased at
being able to report the increase in container handling,
which rose by 37 percent to 4.2 million
tonnes.
New sheet pile
However, wide-ranging refurbishing work is necessary
in the harbour area for the port to continue to
develop positively. The embankment consolidation
on the North Rhine quay in Duisburg-Hochfeld is
a left-over from the fifties of the last century and,
over the course of time, had become in need of
repair. Brückner Grundbau GmbH of Essen was
contracted with the replacement of the embankment
consolidation by Duisburger Hafen AG last year.
ThyssenKrupp GfT Bautechnik supplied approx.
700 tonnes of sheet piles for the construction
project.
The 226 metre long embankment consolidation on
the North Rhine quay is used as a place of transhipment
by the transport company Harpen. Suffering
from heavy use, the edge of the embankment had
become in need of refurbishment. “A new sheet pile
wall with integrated landing piles had to be fitted
in front of the already existing corrugated sheet
pile,” says Frank Tapken of ThyssenKrupp GfT Bautechnik,
describing the task. The new sheet pile
wall was equipped with vertical ladders and pockettype
bollards.
To keep the restrictions on work to a minimum for
the transportation company Harpen, the planners
decided to carry out the refurbishment of the
embankment consolidation in two constructional
phases. The 700 tonnes of sheet piles were delivered
by ship to Duisburg in November 2003.
Since the sheet piles had to be positioned very
deep, while the ground was very compact and the
old coal bunkers no longer gave the impression
of being very secure, the construction experts
decided not to position the sheet piles using the
vibration method. An elevated dredger was used
to drive the sheet piles by a hydraulic hammer.
Avoiding incidents
While construction was under way, the planners
took account of unfavourable circumstances such
as dredging free the alignment of the pile drivers
in front of the old corrugated sheet pile wall.
Because of this, it was necessary over and over
again to make provisional measurements as well
as accompanying deformation measurements
together with evaluations. So as to avoid unwanted
incidents, comprehensive vibration measurements
were made during the pile-driving work. HOESCH
Spundwand und Profil GmbH developed a new
sheet pile, the HOESCH 3600 n, for the embank-
Water-tight: sheet piles on the Rhine quay
in Duisburg. 700 tonnes of sheet piles were used to redevelop the Rh