• Alpha Ventus Transformer Station
• Container Terminal CT IV
• Container Terminal Gdansk

Container Terminal CT IV

Client: City of Bremen, represented by bremenports GmbH & Co. KG

Dates work carried out: 2004 - 2008

Value: €250,000,000

The quay wall of container terminal CT IV will be the longest continuous quay wall in the world. If it was possible to look down from it to the harbor bed, this would feel like standing on a 10-story building. The size of the ground is about 900,000 sqm.

By extending the existing quay wall, the city of Bremerhaven reacts to the continuing global boom in container shipping. This project is the most ambitious and most complex extension that has ever been realized on Germany‘s coasts. The terminal stretch's five kilometers along the river Weser and provides ample space for accommodating the world‘s largest container vessels.

Over the last five years, the number of shipped containers has almost doubled and this growth trend is continuing. This is reason enough for another large-scale extension of the more than 3-kilometer-long structure. The framework conditions make this venture a particular challenge: located on the Weser estuary, the construction site is fully exposed to the adversities of the weather and the sea. But what ever the weather, the task at hand demands centimeter precision in the handling of construction elements that typically weigh several tons. The quay diaphragm wall not only has to bea the weight of the huge container bridges and the cargo transported on them – it also replaces the dike and has to be able to absorb the pressure of ebb and flow.

To make the structure fit for this task, the ground was replaced on a large scale first. The soft clayand- sea-silt ground reaching down to 19 metres into the new terminal site was excavated over a width of 60 metres and replaced with sand. Only after completion of this step could the pile driving works for the diaphragm wall begin. At intervals of 2.31 metres, the bearing piles with a weight of up to 30 tons are driven into the ground. As the requirements placed on precision are extremely high, the pile driver has to be placed on a stable base – a star role for HOCHTIEF Construction’s jack-up platform Odin. The wall is anchored by way of raked piles. Each of these 45-metre-long piles carries a load of up to 200 tons.