A Numerical Study for Upgrading the Container Terminal of Port-Said West Port

Over the past few decades, the rapid expansion of trade has led to a tremendous increase in cargo handling between the various continents. This continuous growth has motivated shipping lines to increase the ships sizes which may lead to the need to develop many of container terminals. Generally, the complete demolition of an existing quay wall construction and replacing by a new structure is often not possible due to the high costs. The deepening and upgrading of the existing quay walls is the next option. This means that the existing quay walls will have to retain more soil than they actually designed for. The general approach for this case is to review the original design and subsequent improvement calculations. The present study was carried out to evaluate numerically, using the numerical model PLAXIS 2D, the possibility to upgrade the existing open-piled quay wall structure of the container terminal of Port Said West port, Egypt. A rehabilitation technique consisting of new fender piles and new box sheet pile panels had been selected to accommodate the berth deepening and the heavier new container crane loads. The evaluation had been carried out through the review of the original design and subsequent improvement analyses under the development two cases defined as Pre- and Post-upgrading cases. The results showed that the structure after upgrading was able to keep the stability of the soil to its previous levels before upgrading and quay wall structure elements were able to resist the deepening effect plus the increase in crane loads.