Construction of a New Quay Wall for a Sea Tank Terminal in the Port of Antwerp-Paper

Paper

Pdf Summary

The Port of Antwerp’s Kanaaldok B2 project replaced 800 metres of existing quay wall with a new, heavier structure designed for water depths of up to 18 metres, allowing larger ships to berth. The wall is a combi system: 270 steel pipe piles, each 2.2 metres in diameter and 28 metres long, form the primary structure, with sheet piles installed between them.<br /><br />To anchor the wall, contractors installed inclined Müller Verpress (MV) grouted piles. These steel H-section piles are driven while grout is injected at the pile tip, filling the space around the shaft and forming a hardened grout root at the base. The system is suited to high tensile loads and helps improve pile capacity.<br /><br />The work presented unusual challenges. MV piles were installed at a 45-degree angle in dense glauconite-rich sand, which required substantial driving energy. At 43 metres, the piles were the longest of their type driven in Belgium. The project also involved tight schedules and restricted space for handling different pile types.<br /><br />A Liebherr LRH 600 piling rig with a freely suspended, 60-metre swinging leader was used with an LR 1600 crawler crane. This setup enabled angled installation, flexible crane positioning and work from either side of the quay.<br /><br />A static load test conducted in accordance with Eurocode 7 demonstrated the anchoring system’s performance: a design load of 400 tonnes was exceeded, with a reaction force of 690 tonnes producing 2 millimetres of pile-head displacement.

Keywords

Port of Antwerp

Kanaaldok B2

quay wall replacement

combi wall system

steel pipe piles

sheet piles

Müller Verpress piles

angled grouted piles

Liebherr LRH 600

Eurocode 7 load test