Third Harbour IJmuiden

The Third Harbour, located at the entrance to the ports of IJmuiden and Amsterdam, is designed to provide extra capacity for short sea and cold storage shipping. It is a setback harbour, surrounded on three sides by dockyards totalling 22 ha of which 11,5 ha were created by land reclamation. The basin is 11 m deep and has a total quay length of 800 m.
The land reclamation to the west consists of approximately 10 m of sand on top of a silt depot of 6 m thick. The sand layer was sprayed in thin layers on top of the unstable silt, then vertical drains were installed to facilitate the consolidation process.

The harbour protection on the canal side is made up of a ‘combi-wall’, a construction comprised of alternating sheet piles and tubular piles. Each tubular pile is secured by two tie rods of 30 m long, which are connected to a single sheet pile wall. A rubble mound slope was placed on top of this combi-wall construction.

Facing the sea, the harbour is protected by a perched beach and a man-made sand dune. The perched beach arose as a result of the existing recreational beach being moved seawards to create the necessary area for the new harbour, and by taking into account the limited space due to the entrance of an existing marina. The perched beach is secured by a free-standing combi-wall, which is always entirely under water.

During construction, several subterranean obstacles were encountered, requiring design alterations for those locations.

Activities:

• master plan development
• preliminary design
• detailed design
• construction and as-built drawings
• technical specifications
• technical assistance during construction