GEWI ^® Tie Rods stabilize Sheet Pile Wall in Italy’s Third Largest Harbor

After Gioia Tauro and Genoa, La Spezia Harbor on the Ligurian Sea coast is Italy’s third largest commercial harbor.

The harbor can accommodate the latest generation container ships and registered more than 1 million container movements in 2007.

In order to accommodate the anticipated increase in the volume of cargo to be handled in the future, Garibaldi Wharf is currently being enlarged.

The western side of the wharf will be enlarged to a maximum width of approx. 50m, while the front end will be expanded by 130m. Construction work began in 2008 and is scheduled for completion in 2011.

During the expansion, work was done on a 10m wide sheet pile wall at the front end of the wharf. The sheet pile wall consists of a HZ975/AZ18 main wall and an AZ37-700 anchorage wall.

DYWIT was awarded a contract to supply approx. 4,800m of double corrosion protected Type 63T GEWI ^® Tie Rods for this project. The tie rods were used to connect a reinforced 4x3m concrete beam to the anchor wall in order to limit deformations while filling the anchor wall. The GEWI ^® Tie Rods were installed at a spacing of 2,27m and in individual lengths of 27 to 33m. Afterwards, the GEWI ^® Tie Rods were prestressed to approx. 200kN. With a live load of 40kN/m², the final load after completion amounts to approx. 665kN.