Reliability updating for lateral failure of historic quay walls

The historic canal walls of Amsterdam, stretching 200 km in total, are constructed as a masonry wall on a timber deck supported by vertical timber piles. Understanding the resistance against lateral failure of these quays has been challenging due to uncertainties in their working principles, geometry, soil and structural properties. This...

An Experimental and Numerical Study on Decayed Azobé Sheet piles

Given the desire to construct more structures using sustainable building materials, demand for wood and other bio-based building materials has risen dramatically over the decade. While timber itself is a carbon-neutral material and can sometimes even be carbon-negative, reusing wooden structural members made that have been in service for several...

Structural Assessment of a Masonry Quay Wall in Amsterdam Under Traffic Loading

Canals delimited by masonry quay walls are integral elements of many cities in the Netherlands. Historically built to enable the efficient transportation of goods, today such infrastructure also gives the cities their historical and monumental character. In recent years, many quay walls in the Netherlands have shown substantial deformation and...

The Influence of Negative Skin Friction on the Bearing Capacity of Timber Piles in Amsterdam

This research looked into the influence of negative skin friction on timber piles in Amsterdam. Tensile load tests were performed on new, instrumented timber piles at Overamstel in Amsterdam. The negative skin friction calculated from the test data was compared to the negative skin friction from NEN 9997-1 for a single pile. The test results...

Connection of timber foundation piles to concrete extension piles

In this work, the relationship for a socket-type connection in wooden foundation piles is investigated, and a trilinear moment-rotation diagram was determined by means of experiment.<br/>Numerical and analytical models confirmed that the material properties for compression perpendicular to the grain are governing for the connections’ strength...

An integral approach for the assessment of timber pile foundations

Timber pile foundations are widespread in many areas around Europe and North-America. Especially in areas with weak soils, timber pile foundations have been a very good and economic solution. However, aging of the foundations can become a problem, as physical, biological and/or chemical degradation may occur over time. Now, that foundations...

Geotechnical Bearing Capacity of Timber Piles in the City of Amsterdam: Derivation of bearing capacity prediction factors based on static load tests conducted on instrumented timber piles

In the city of Amsterdam, many structures, such as houses,bridges and quay walls, are founded on wooden piles. In order to gain insightinto the safety of such structures, assessment of the foundations is required.As part of an experimental framework assessing the safety of bridges and quaywalls in the city of Amsterdam, a...

The remaining capacity of the timber foundation of a historical quay wall with relieving platform: With the Maaskade as a case study

The increased loading and decreasing strength of historical quay walls calls for remedyand has drawn the attention of many Dutch municipalities, Rotterdam being oneof those. In order to set up proper assessment methods that result in an economicaland ecological policy for renovation or replacement of these structures the Port of Rotterdamhas...

The Geotechnical Bearing Capacity of Old Timber Piles

In this thesis the geotechnical bearing capacity of old timber piles in Amsterdam is studied. This is necessary because many structures such as quay walls, bridges and houses in the (historic) city centre of Amsterdam are founded on timber piles with ages ranging between 80 and 300 years old. The assessment of the foundation is currently done...

Service life modelling of timber structures