Quayside wall formwork for Stockholm Norvik Port
New development in port areas is a ‘hot’ item these days. Vessels are constantly becoming larger and Europe, from an environmental perspective, is specifically focusing on water-based transport. When a port city is furthermore expanding, then it soon becomes necessary to expand the port as well. Hendriks precon supports this trend with the production of formwork for quayside walls. Boskalis is using this formwork for the construction of a new port in Stockholm.
Quayside Wall
The port city of Stockholm in total already has seven ports, part of which are used by international cruise ships and local traffic. The new Norvik port will become the home base for all container transport and in the future is to become the principal port from which all goods transport via the Baltic Sea will be handled.
The port will acquire seven berths for container ships and ro-ro vessels. Boskalis was asked to construct a 1,100-metre long quayside wall for mooring these vessels. The largest part of this wall consists of a 3-metre high concrete head beam, placed on a combi-wall with tubular piles, and for which the concrete will be poured underwater.
Wet Casting
This ‘wet’ construction imposes special requirements on the formwork. In particular, the connection with and the seal around the underlying structure are key. Hendriks precon developed a solution consisting of three 16-metre quayside wall formworks. To fix the formwork to the sheet pile wall requires nuts that are welded to the combi-wall underwater by divers. Hendriks precon managed to limit this costly and time consuming work to a minimum through a smart and careful selection of the number of fixing points.
Challenging Connection
The formwork itself consists of a bottom component that precisely connects to the round shape of the tubular piles and a one-sided wall component. The entire unit is suspended from sections that are poured at the same time that the tubular piles are poured. To suspend the formwork from these sections, Hendriks precon opted for a bracket pole construction at the top of the formwork.
The connection of the bottom component with the tubular piles of the combi-wall is essential; a challenging task due to the round shape of the tubular piles. Without a perfect connection, the concrete would run into the sea. To prevent this, the shape of the bottom component closely follows the shape of the tubular piles. The different components of the bottom formwork can be shifted with the aid of a spindle to ensure they properly and precisely connect to the piles. A rubber sealing element at the area of contact between the formwork and the pile provides for a completely sealed bottom.
The one-sided wall formwork resting on the bottom formwork is partly fixed to the combi-wall underwater. The maximum occurring concrete pressure is 65 kN/m2. A pouring platform is attached to the outside of the formwork to provide for a safe and occupational health and safety friendly execution of the pouring process.