Piles against Uplift: New Aqueduct on the “Centrale As” Motorway
A new motorway was built between the towns of Dokkum and Nijega in the province of Friesland in the north of the Netherlands: The “Centrale As”. Together with two ring roads, the motorway will have a length of approx. 35km. With two lanes in each direction, the new motorway will establish a better connection between the north-east of Friesland and the other regions of the country.
The Centrale As also includes an aqueduct along the Prinses Margriet Canal. After the construction of the aqueduct, this canal was relocated towards the south. This way, the enclosed aqueduct structure could be built on the land along the current canal.
To extend the aqueduct, the company Voorbij Funderingstechniek installed temporary and permanent steel sheet piling. Voorbij Funderingstechniek also installed 63.5T Gewi Piles in the concrete floor of the aqueduct to preven it from uplifting.
The Timmermans Infratechniek company installed all of the DYWIDAG Strand Anchors that were needed to stabilize the sheet pile construction. Both the temporary and the permanent DYWIDAG Strand Anchors were equipped with watertight anchor heads.
In total, DYWIDAG supplied 1,220 Gewi Piles and 280 temporary and permanent DYWIDAG Strand Anchors for this project.