Ports and Terminals

By nature port planning is a multidisciplinary activity. It involves expertise in the field of transport economics, shipping, nautical matters, safety and logistics. But also knowledge of waves and currents, sediment transport and coastal morphology, dredging and land reclamation, and design of breakwaters and quays. Hence port planning is...

The Flexible Port

Ports are beset with many uncertainties about their futures. They are confronted with new demands in terms of functions and scales, new external constraints, and changed expectations. The inability to adequately meet these demands can mean costly adaptations for a port, or loss of cargo and competitive position. A plausible reason is that the...

Quay wall design for an uncertain future

The importance of incorporating flexibility and adaptability in infrastructure is being increasingly recognized. Flexibility in infrastructure can prolong their economic lifetime by enabling them to adapt to the changed requirements. The objective of this paper is to examine if it is possible to incorporate flexibility in port infrastructure...

Flexibility in port infrastructure

The present volatile environment continues to place new functional requirements on port infrastructure. As a result, the useful life of port infrastructure has reduced in recent years. Flexibility in infrastructure makes it possible to adapt them for new or changed use. The use of flexible and sustainable solutions infrastructures needs to be...

Calculations of the motions of a ship moored with Moormaster units

Container ships should only make very small horizontal movements at the berth for efficient (off loading of containers. This is especially a concern in ports directly facing the open ocean, where high swells at sea can cause harbour oscillations and low-frequency surge motions of the ship. Cavotec MSL has developed a new mooring unit, the...

Design of sustainable complex industrial port areas, based on the combination of sub-solutions, illustrated with a case

Design engineers working in design and planning of urban and industrial areas are confronted more and more frequently with complex solution spaces, filled with hundreds of alternative combinations of possible sub-solutions supplied by a host of specialists. As a result of this, their quest for the optimum design tends increasingly to run aground...

Preliminary results of a research into carbon footprint of port infrastructure, Port of Rotterdam

This article describes the preliminary results of a study in the Port of Rotterdam to assess the carbon footprint of port infrastructures, In the study two types of port infrastructure have been selected, a road construction and a quay wall construction. For both structures the individual components of these structures were categorized to assess...

The Virtual Terminal: Visualizing Automated Container Terminals

Automation in maritime container terminals is gaining momentum as the advantages in terms of total life cycle costs have become apparent in western countries. However, expertise and experience in the design, development and operation of automated terminals is still limited. Many stakeholders or actors are involved in the design process and the...

Design & construct contract for a deepsea quay wall in the Port of Rotterdam: Case study Brammen terminal

On one of the last remaining plots in the existing port (without the 2nd Maasvlakte), the Port of Rotterdam designed a terminal for the handling of steel slabs (“brammen”). The terminal required a massive quay wall to accommodate the panamax vessels with their heavy cargo. The quay wall is tendered under a design and construct contract. This...

Maasvlakte 2 reclamation: Nautical design

Surgical Quay-wall Renovation

This paper describes an innovative approach towards quay wall renovation design. In the “RDM Kraanbaan 13” project in Rotterdam, significant cost savings were made and environmental impact was minimised, while on a tight schedule and with limited information about the structure and its future use. Essential were a very practical and flexible...

Polder Container Terminal

New ports are mostly constructed on low lying coastal land or in shallow coastal waters. The surface level of the land for port facilities is then raised to a level well above the highest water mark. This requires vast volumes of good quality fill material often dredged from the sea. Besides the cost of dredging, there is the environmental...

The historical development of the port of Livorno (Italy) and its new Port Plan 2010 in advanced stage of elaboration

The geographical location makes the port of Livorno one of the most important in Italy. The port, in-fact, benefits of an extended network of roads and rails connecting it with the rest of Italy, and central and southern Europe as well. The history of Livorno and of its port is inextricably linked to that of Pisa and Florence, and to the...

Innovative quay structures and developments of the port Eemshaven, the Netherlands

The Eemshaven, located in the north eastern part of the Netherlands, is developing rapidly since 2004 introducing new port infrastructure for various clients such as AG Ems (Borkum ferry line), Wijnne & Barends stevedoors, Bio Value, Essent/Vopak/Gasunie (LNG plant) and the Energy Park comprising amongst others new power plants for Nuon and RWE.

Conceptual design for the breakwater system of the south of Doson naval base: Optimisation versus deterministic design

In 2006 a Vietnamese Engineering Consultancy Company carried out a design study of a Naval Base at the location of the South of Doson Peninsula in Vietnam. A deterministic approach applied to the conceptual design of the breakwater system of the Naval Base resulted in a cross-section with a big armour layer and a rather low crest level. This...