Chinese-German Joint Symposium on Hydraulic and Ocean Engineering, August 24-30, 2008, Darmstadt

DESIGN CONCEPTS FOR QUAY WALLS FOR LARGE VESSELS

Werner Richwien
Institute of Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, University Duisburg-Essen, Essen

Abstract:

The worldwide growth in container handling and other ship traffic leads to enormous challenges
for harbour construction. Concerning container ships actually design studies are made for ship sizes
of more than 15 000 TEU with a length of more than 400 m, a width of 70 m and a draft of 21 m. Along
with these ship sizes the traffic loads and the operation loads of container cranes increase
dramatically. This development has to be anticipated by new quay concepts with extended
dimensions especially in the height between harbour bottom and top of the structure. Thus a number
of innovations in quay wall design have established during the last 10 years. New calculation
techniques permit better modelling, and thus the possibility for extension existing quay walls for
higher water depth and entirely different types of structural forms than the conventional ones. In the
construction phase the quality of the structure in situ could be improved and at the same time high
strength pre fabricated elements with hoisting loads up to 4000 tons can be accurately placed by
new technologies.

The paper discusses design concepts for large sheet pile quay walls, from relatively simple one
dimensional structures to integrated structures with highly complex interactions between the soil
behind the retaining wall and the wall itself. Structures of these types are actually discussed
controversially in Germany, the JadeWeserPort at Wilhelmshaven is such an example. The paper
discusses advantages and risks of these new design concepts and thus might help to objectify the
actual discussions on this question.

Later the wall elements were U-shaped steel

I. INTRODUCTION
Quay walls are earth retaining structures at which
ships can berth. They are equipped with bollards and
fenders, and they are used for the handling of goods
by cranes and other equipment moving alongside
the ship.
In ancient times ship landing had been restricted
to natural bays in which ships were drawn to the dry.
At places where ships could moor villages and towns
grew up. Mooring places grew into quays and
developed into ports and trading places.
Early types of quays were gravity walls, their
retaining function is obtained by the self weight of the
structure. Gravity walls have been constructed from
stone blocks, since the first century BC already from
concrete.
Especially at coast lines with weak soils sheet pile
walls have been developed. They get their soil
retaining function and stability from the fixation
capacity of the soil. The sheet pile wall then is a
cantilever beam elastically fixed in the ground. With
increasing height the deflections at the top become
to large so that the top needs to be anchored. Once
more the fixation capacity of the soil is the
stabilization element for the anchors.
Early sheet pile structures had been made from
wooden elements, connected by groove and tongue.
The anchors were chains leading to anchor plates
back behind of the structure. In case of weak soils
forming the upper soil strata the walls have been
anchored by inclined piles or by pile racks.
profiles, connected together with bolted on Z-profiles.
These elements combined a higher stiffness with a
length depending to the construction height. The
invention of the Larssen interlock in 1904 was the
starting impulse for an accelerated development of
the sheet pile construction method which is not yet
finished. Nowadays sheet pile structures are most
widely used for quay walls.
Due to the development in shipping during the last
decades design depth of quay walls increased
dramatically, resulting in combined sheet pile walls
with heavy profiles. This development is a challenge
for the designer to find structural solutions for an
optimal capacity utilization of standard sheet pile
structures. But it is recognized, that the conventional
anchored sheet pile wall, fixed in the ground, has
reached dimensions which can not be enlarged.
II. SOIL STRUCTURE INTERACTION
Already the simple structures of the early period
used the same soil mechanic principles as known
from the nowadays large sheet pile constructions.
Soil is at the one hand the loading element, it takes
the structure loads on the other hand. Thus design of
quay walls is firstly an evaluation of active and
passive earth pressure.
Early in 1776 Coulomb developed a theoretical
approach for the calculation of earth pressure, in
which he postulated that active earth pressure on a
retaining wall withdrawn from the soil behind
becomes a minimum when the soil shear strength is
activated to its maximum.

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At the other hand passive earth pressure on a wall slope beneath of the superstructure, which again
which is pushed against soil becomes maximum reduces earth pressure. In tidal zones the linking of
when soil shear strength is fully activated. ships beneath the superstructure can be prevented
Up to today this soil-structure interaction is the by fenders.
basic concept of quay wall design. It has been When the superstructure is positioned deeper the
adopted by Blum for his sheet piling calculation length of the sheet piles can be reduced to any
method and it forms the background for the design desired length and additionally the active earth
concept according EAU 2004. pressure is further reduced. This option is however
According to the soil structure interaction earth restricted when the wall is not constructed in a dry
pressure is redistributed to the more stiff parts of the pit.
structure due to activated shear strength in the soil.
C. Position of sheet pile wall
III. STRUCTURAL DESIGN ASPECTS In addition to soil retaining function the quay wall
has to bear vertical loads from cranes. So the
At first sight the designer of a quay wall seems to
position of bearing elements directly under the crane
have a high degree of freedom to chose between
track is optimal for the load transfer into the soil. The
many different design concepts. In practice however
wall itself than can be placed under the rear side of
the local construction conditions predominate the
the superstructure, the bottom in front of the wall is
design. Nevertheless some general design aspects
sloped, so the system length of the rear side wall can
have to regarded.
be slightly shorter (Fig. 3). However the full, not
A. Type and position of achor relieved earth pressure acts on the back-positioned
wall and the passive earth pressure in front of the
The most simple type of a quay wall is an wall is due to the sloped bottom small, so that a the
anchored sheet pile wall without any superstructure benefit of this design is restricted.
(Fig. 1). All surface load is directly transferred to the
wall by the earth pressure. The wall is supported by
soil resistance in the bottom and by the anchor.
Bending moments of the wall depend on the
position of the anchor and the stiffness of the support
in the soil. They can be reduced, when the anchor is
placed in a deeper position, this is however often
restricted with respect of the water level when the
wall is constructed in the open sea.

Figure 2. Quay wall with superstructure, Hansaport, Hamburg [1]

Figure 1. Structure of single anchored sheet pile wall [1]

Improvement of the support in the soil is possible

by densification or replacement of the soil in front of
the wall.
Horizontal anchors with anchor walls or anchor
plates are easy to install, but their bearing capacity is
often restricted when soils in the upper regions are
weak. Inclined anchor piles reach down to soils with
higher strength.
B. Superstructure
A compact superstructure placed on the wall and
on raked piles allows the transfer of crane beam load
and all traffic loads directly into the subsoil (Fig. 2). Figure 3. Back-positioned retaining sheet pile wall [1]
Thus the retaining wall itself is not affected by the
operational loads and has to keep soil pressure only. D. Inclined sheet piles
Additionally to this load relieving the superstructure
screens the earth pressure. Further on it allows a Because the crane track is some distance from the
front of the structure, the available space can be

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 Chinese-German Joint Symposium on Hydraulic and Ocean Engineering, August 24-30, 2008, Darmstadt
used to drive the sheet pile wall inclined (Fig. 4). In
combination with anchor piles incline by 1:1 the axial
load in the sheet pile wall is reduced, and
additionally the sheet pile wall acts as a stabilizing
foundation member. On the other hand active earth
pressure, but mainly passive earth pressure are
reduced due to the inclination of the wall, so that the
effect of inclination is restricted. An important
advantage however is that the inclination of the wall
gives space for the structural design of the bearing of
the superstructure on the wall.
E. Static system
The sheet pile wall is a beam. loaded by soil- and
water pressure, anchored at the top and fixed in the
soil by passive soil resistance. Within certain limits
the depth of the wall can be varied, depending on
the choice of the static system. Free earth supported
walls just ensure the stability, with increasing depth
fixed end moments can be activated. Between free
earth support and fully fixed support, partly fixed
support offers a variety of depths.
Fixed sheet piles minimize the risk of loss of
stability caused by insufficient passive earth
pressure and offer an extra capacity for extreme load
situations. The choice of fully free support might be
considered in case of subsoil which could cause
driving risks.
IV. TWO COMPETING SOLUTIONS
A. Tender design
For a new container harbor at Wilhelmshaven
(Jade) the tender design was made as a vertical
anchored combined sheet pile wall with a concrete
superstructure, placed on inclined steel piles. Top of
the superstructure is NN +7.5 m, the sheet pile wall
and the steel piles under the superstructure reach
down to NN –45 m in the very dense pleistocene
sand (Fig. 5). Harbor bottom is NN –19.8 m, thus the
height of the quay wall is 27.3 m. The length of the
sheet pile wall is 46.5 m, the length of the anchor pile
is 47 m.
The sheet pile wall is placed 4.5 m behind of the
front of the superstructure, in front of the sheet pile
wall circular piles of 1.2 m diameter, spaced 4.32 m,
form the support for the fender system.
The front sheet pile wall is backfilled only up to NN
–3.0 m to reduce earth pressure. Even with this
design trick the largest available profiles (PSp 1035
S) are necessary as primary piles. At the rear end of
the superstructure a sheet pile wall Larssen 605k
retains soil behind of the superstructure.
The tender design makes use of all design options
to optimize the structure, but more or less it is
something like a final evolution for this type of quay
wall construction.
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Figure 4. Inclined sheet pile wall [1]
A typical cross section of the specific proposal can
be seen in Fig. 5. The retaining wall is anchored by 4
layers of anchors and anchor plates reaching up to
45 m in the backfill.
The construction of the quay wall was planned as
follows:
After the retaining wall, existing of primary
elements HZ 775 A and secondary elements AZ 26
is positioned and driven to its design depth (NN –
34.5 m) the soft soil behind of the wall was intended
to be dredged under water to a level of NN –17 m.
On the cleaned up dredging base the anchor rods,
diameter 6.25”, of the bottom anchor layer should be
placed, ready assembled together with the anchor
plates, one anchor for each primary element (a =
2.27 m). The placing of the anchor is patent-
registered by the Josef Möbius Bau
Aktiengesellschaft Hamburg.
In the next step the bottom anchor layer should be
embedded in under water dumped sand up to NN –
12.50m, starting in front of the anchor plate and
moving towards the retaining wall. Thus the anchor
capacity is guarantied before the wall is loaded by
earth pressure.
In the same way the anchor layers at NN – 12.5 m
and NN – 5 m should be placed and embedded in
sand. The topmost anchor layer at NN * 2.5 m was
finally planned to be placed in dry.
The superstructure was planned as a relatively
light concrete beam, placed on the retaining wall and
on the fender piles in front of the wall. It is at the
same time the bearing beam for the front crane rail.
The rear crane rail was planned to be founded
separately on concrete piles.
V. COMPARISION OF TENDER DESIGN AND SPECIFIC
PROPOSAL
At first sight the specific proposal is recognized as
a multi anchored retaining wall, a construction which
is known since long from deep excavation pits. It
forms a statically multi-indeterminated system with
the advantage that the span is cut in small sections,
so that the design bending moment is small
compared to the tender design. Consequently the
needed elastic section modulus of the primary
elements decreases from W = 16 656 cm³ in the
case of tender design (PSp 1035 S) to W = 7230 cm³
for the specific proposal (Hz 775 A). Thus this
specific design is a typical example for an advanced
engineering solution, it is an evolution of quay wall
 Chinese-German Joint Symposium on Hydraulic and Ocean Engineering, August 24-30, 2008, Darmstadt

design which offers a large potential for increasing
cuts.
Apparently the structural safety of the quay wall is
relatively insensitive to differences in the density of
the backfill in front of the anchor plates, since due to
overlapping load distribution zones differences in the
deformations to activate passive earth pressure are
smeared. Thus the separately placed anchor plates
interact with the soil like a throughout back wall of a
coffer dam.
The process of activating passive earth pressure
is however accompanied by horizontal deformations
of the wall, and it is not clearly to identify in which
phase these deformations occur. In case that they
occur during construction phase they can easily
considered and compensated when the
superstructure is placed. In case that the
deformations go along with the operation loads their
magnitude may however be of paramount
importance for the serviceability of the structure.
Since a structure of this type never has been build
before, it was not possible to identify clearly the
structure deformations to be expected during
operation and over lifetime. This was the main
reason why finally the specific proposal has been
rejected by the awarding authority.

Figure 5. Typical cross section of the quay wall according to the tender design [2]

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 Chinese-German Joint Symposium on Hydraulic and Ocean Engineering, August 24-30, 2008, Darmstadt

Figure 6. Cross section of the quay wall according to the specific proposal [3Specific proposal

VI. CONCLUSIONS
The classical design concepts of quay walls for
large vessels with only one anchor placed close to
the top and a free span down to the harbor bottom
has reached dimensions which hardly allows for the
ship dimensions needed for today traffic. If it is
realistic that the development of ships draught will
increase in future as in the past, new concepts for
the quay walls are needed urgently. A very
promising one is multi-anchored combined sheet pile
wall. The statical concept is well known from deep
excavation pits, the static stability of the ready build
structure is relatively robust. Open question remain
however with respect to structural deformations
during lifetime.

REFERENCES
[1] Handbook Quay Walls, Center for Civil Engineering research and
Codes (CUR), CUR-Publication 211E, Gouda, The Netherlands,
2005
[2] JadeWeserPort Realisierungsgesellschaft Wilhelmshaven, Tender
design 2005
[3] Bietergemeinschaft Bunte u.a.; Specific proposal JadeWeserPort,
2005

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