Port Design - Nador

Abstract

Along the northern coast of Morocco order has been given for the construction of a large transshipment port in the Mediterranean Sea, at a designated project location around the city of Nador. On this green-field coastal stretch a new transhipment port will have to be developed for various types of cargo. Throughputs of the terminals will have to be maximized, a plan for in-phased port development and expansion will have to be provided, cargo transport to the hinterland has to be taken into account and sufficient surface space should be included in the design for additional services. Relevant data regarding the project (location) has been identified and analyzed: hydrodynamic data (wind, waves, currents, water levels) and environmental site data (topography, bathymetry, geology, hydrology and morphology). Besides this, a forecast has been formulated with the expected design ships that will visit the new port. From this, cargo-vessel distributions and vessel-arrival distributions have been defined, resulting in the total amount of shipping traffic for every terminal. Subsequently, the design of the port master plan can commence in which first of all the approach channel, harbor basins and manoeuvring and berth areas have been designed. As a next step the characteristics of the various terminals have been determined, under which the number of berths, quay length and surface areas. After using all port elements listed above jointly, several port masterplan layouts have been drawn up. From these port masterplan layouts, the most promising alternative has been selected after comparison by means of a Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA) on various criteria under which nautical ease, safety, expansion possibilities and costs. Concluding to this, the selected port masterplan layout has been optimized. The resulting harbour layout has been assessed regarding the topic of in-port wave penetration and propagation. Limiting operational wave criteria have been defined and relevant wave processes have been evaluated with the wave simulation model DIFFRAC-2DH. In order to decrease wave reflection due to monolithic breakwaters (and thus the port’s downtime), new simulation runs were carried out with an improved breakwater configuration using low-reflectivity caissons. With these wave-dampening improvements included, the simulation model runs yielded very positive results. The wave study was concluded with an assessment on port oscillations as a result of earthquakes, tsunamis and meteorological forces. After the performed wave study, the port breakwaters have been designed. For this, two typical cross-sections were selected. After including construction constraints and wave damping measures, a rubble mound breakwater was designed with a specific armour layer, and a vertical composite breakwater as a perforated wall caisson on a rubble mound foundation bed. The application of wave energy absorbing measures is a necessity in order to minimize the port’s downtime, and will have to be included in a final design. The designed port masterplan layout meets all specifications and requirements and its breakwaters are adequate in creating calm in-port berthing conditions resulting in high uptimes of the berths.