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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