Quay Walls of the Port of Rotterdam

This paper gives an overview of the development of the design of the Rotterdam quay walls. Because of the increasing dimensions of the ships during the last 40years the retaining height of the quay walls increased as well. The larger height of the wall required heavier sheet piling, higher anchor forces and thus more intensive pile fields. This process of up-scaling resulted in the 70s in large displacements of some of the sea quay walls for coal and ores. The beha vior had a decisive influence on the later designs. In the paper the present design philosophy and a new safety concept is presented. Furthermore different optimisations are shown. It appears that the constructions built according to the actual design are functioning properly and that the costs did not increase over the last ten years.