Port areas are hot when it comes to new construction. Ships are getting bigger and bigger, and Europe is emphatically focusing on water transport for environmental reasons. And when a port city expands, port expansion quickly becomes necessary. Hendriks supports this trend with formwork for quay walls. Boskalis is using these in the construction of a new port in Stockholm.
The port city of Stockholm already has a total of seven ports, some of which are used by international cruise ships and for local transport. The new Norvik port will be the home base for all container transport and is set to become the main port for all freight transport via the Baltic Sea in the future.
The port will have seven berths for container ships and RoRo ships. Boskalis has been asked to construct a 1,100-metre quay wall for these ships to moor. The largest part of this wall consists of a 3-metre-high concrete caisson that will be placed on a combi wall with tubular piles, with the concrete being poured underwater.
This 'wet' construction poses special challenges for the formwork. The connection to and sealing around the underlying structure are particularly important. Hendriks developed a solution with three 16-metre quay wall formworks. To fix the formwork to the sheet pile wall, nuts are required that are welded underwater to the combi wall by divers. Hendriks was able to minimise this costly and time-consuming welding work by carefully selecting the number of fixing points.
The formwork itself consists of a base section that fits precisely to the round shape of the tubular piles and a single-sided wall section. The entire structure is suspended from profiles that were cast into the tubular piles. Hendriks opted for a gallows construction at the top of the formwork to suspend the formwork from these profiles.
The connection of the bottom section to the tubular piles of the combi wall is essential; a challenging task due to the round shape of the tubular piles. Without a good connection, the concrete would run into the sea. To prevent this, the shape of the bottom section closely follows the shape of the tubular piles. The different parts of the bottom box can be moved using a spindle so that they connect properly and accurately to the posts. A rubber sealing element on the contact surface between the formwork and the post ensures a completely closed bottom.
The single-sided wall formwork standing on the bottom formwork is partially secured to the combi wall under water. The maximum concrete pressure is 65 kN/m2. A pouring platform is provided on the outside of the formwork to ensure safe and health-friendly pouring.
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