The Port of Tallinn invited Witteveen+Bos to prepare the reference design for the land reclamation of three million m3 (80 hectares) quay structure with a length of 800 metres and rails.
The design was made in conformity with the FIDIC ‘Conditions of Contract for Design-Build’ and included a basic design, budget estimates and realisation planning. Founded on the basic design budget, estimations were made of the construction costs. At a later stage the tender design was prepared.
The quay wall will have to support significant loads from mobile cranes, rail cranes and the double track for coal trains. The maximum retaining height is 20.1 metres, the bulk vessels which can be received have a maximum capacity of 125,000 DWT and are 300 metres in length.
This project was dominated by high time pressure for the design and construction in combination with unfavourable physical boundary conditions:
- soft soil with a hard layer at depth varying between surface level near the coast to CD –27 metres at the quay with the largest retaining height
- the hard layer consisted of very hard Cambrian clay, causing very hard pile hammering
- at seabed level and in the subsoil at greater depth, boulders with a diameter of 2 to 3 metres were encountered
- the land reclamation was settling during construction
Back to cluster Hydraulic infrastructure
