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N.A. van Vliet

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Towards a Low-Impact Renewal Concept

Many historic inner-city quay walls in Amsterdam require renewal, while current renewal methods often rely on materials with high environmental impact, such as steel foundation piles. This thesis develops and evaluates lower-impact design alternatives for timber-pile founded quay wall renewal.

The Kloveniersburgwal was used as a representative case location. Based on a system and function analysis, functional and structural requirements were defined. Nine functional variants were developed and evaluated using a Multi-Criteria Analysis and indicative cost comparison. Three variants were then selected for structural verification using Plaxis 2D, including checks for stability, strength and stiffness.

The preferred variant consists of vertical timber piles with steel pile extensions installed through the existing quay wall, combined with two rows of batter piles in the waterway. A soil-retaining screen is placed between the vertical pile extensions, and a prefabricated concrete L-element forms the new quay wall front. During construction, the existing quay wall is temporarily supported by the vertical pile and a collapsible steel support structure.

The preferred variant has a calculated MKI value of approximately €4,190 per 20 m of quay wall, which is considerably lower than the estimated €12,800-€30,700 per 20 m for current renewal methods. Although further development is required, particularly for pile installation, temporary support and connection detailing, the results show that timber-pile based quay wall renewal is a conceptually feasible and promising lower-impact design direction for Amsterdam.
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