Flexible Quay Wall Structures for Container Vessels

Flexible Quay Wall Structures for Container Vessels

Buring, P.

Vellinga, T. (mentor)
Braam, C.R. (mentor)
Taneja, P. (mentor)
Peters, D.J. (mentor)
Biemond, P.G. (mentor)

Civil Engineering and Geosciences

Hydraulic Engineering

2013-03-08

Traditional quay wall structures are not very flexible, because they are often hard to adapt and to reuse. However, changes in the container shipping market, international conflicts and new generations of vessels are some examples that could drive the desire the relocate or adapt quay wall structures. The objective of this thesis is to design a flexible quay wall structure for panamax container vessels that can be reused and can be reconstructed within a relatively short reconstruction period. Several quay wall structures have been designed and assessed, finally resulting in a quay wall, which consists of concrete caissons of 100m long, 33m wide and 11m high. The application of floating structures was considered too, but the required stability could not be guaranteed and motions are likely to exceed the tolerances for container lifting operations. Two caissons are placed on top of each other, resulting in a retaining height of 22m. The lower caissons are filled with water, to make de-ballasting relatively easy. The upper ones are filled with sand to create sufficient weight to satisfy stability against sliding and overturning. The structural strength has been calculated, resulting in an optimum wall thickness and applied amount of reinforcement steel. Determination of floating stability, resistance against earthquakes and slide planes in the subsoil has proven that the structure is a technically feasible alternative. To determine the financial feasibility, the flexible quay wall is compared to a traditional quay wall, for various scenarios. The initial construction costs are about 64% higher than the average constructions costs of traditional structures, but the reconstruction costs are about 28% lower. In combination with a faster reconstruction period and a higher residual value, it turned out that the flexible quay wall structure could be a financially feasible alternative to traditional quay wall structures too.

flexible quay wall
reusability
flexibility
caisson
container vessels

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:31085c73-e1ee-4d6a-a915-40c9dbc564c9

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2013 Buring, P.