Jobs piling up
Testing technology: ThyssenKrupp's use of sheet piling saved Haifa money and time
There’ s mounting demand for quayside upgrade projects as ports tussle to accommodate larger ships and swelling volumes, as Alex Hughes finds out
The firm’s managing director, Tilo Quink, explains to Port Strategy:“This is being driven by the appearance of larger vessels and higher transport volumes.We expect demand in this area to continue growing, since container traffic is expected to increase significantly over the next few years.”
The growth in demand, thankfully poses few problems for the piling provider, with neither degrees of difficulty nor price really acting as barriers to supply. “Invariably,we have to bid against a reference price, which has been determined beforehand by consultants. To a certain extent, this prevents port authorities from asking for unrealistic prices for specific projects,” comments Mr Quink. Nevertheless, he concedes that, on occasions, ThyssenKrupp is asked to undertake a project in a particular technical way, even though this might not necessarily be the best solution.
As for restrictions placed on sheet piling projects by environmental assessment studies, Mr Quink does not believe that these frequently affect the way work has to be carried out.Indeed,he says that it is very seldom that projects are made non-viable because of conditions imposed as a result of such studies.
In respect of risk in case where a piling project goes wrong, Mr Quink says that responsibility would not remain with this piling supplier. “The overall blame in such a case would stay with either the port authority or the project designer,”he says.
Commenting on emerging new techniques, Mr Quink emphasises that steel sheet piling is now making many quay extensions financially possible, where this may not have been the case in the past.
One of the most recent ThyssenKrupp extension projects took place at the Israeli Carmel port of Haifa, where a 2.1 kilometre long quay wall was built specifically for containerships. A total of 20,000 tonnes of material were used in providing sheet piling, beams and mounting technology. A total of 50,000 sq m of steel had to be fitted in place, coated against tidal energy and welded in accordance with structural requirements. Some of the work was carried out at the company’s Bremerhaven plant, before shipping it to Israel. In the meantime, four quay sections were finished in Haifa on both land and water using vibration technology and deploying two ramming units.
By using sheet piling techniques,ThyssenKrupp was able to save the customer 1,500 tons of material compared with its initial quote; in addition, it was possible to perform the ramming much more quickly.
According to the company’s export manager, Andreas Wieners, the preliminary planning was suitably complex. “This order required the ultimate level of project management. Apart from the procurement and delivery of classic material, we had to coordinate the chain of communication between many suppliers. Apart from manufacturing planning and materials management for almost 5,000 individual components, there was also the logistics and financial controlling, and the documentation,” he says.
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