Dubai Maritime City - Ship Lifts

The Dubai Maritime City consists of a 2 km² man-made peninsula providing different areas of business, housing and marinas as well as ship repair facilities which are equipped with two ship lifts with a capacity of 3000 and 6000 tons.

With the execution time being the crucial criterium, hot rolled sheet piling was proposed to built the retaining walls of the ship lifts. Finally the main walls are made of AZ 50 in lengths from 23.0 to 24.5 m, whereas the anchor walls are made of AZ 18 sheet piles of 8.5 m long. Both types of walls are connected with a tailor made pre-fabricated anchoring system of tie rods and walings. For the local vertical loads that will occur during the operation of the ship lift, single AZ 50 box piles, called CAZ 50, were installed.

This cost-efficient solution is the result of intense optimizing efforts carried out by the technical department of Besix in cooperation with ArcelorMittal's design department.

The box piles were fabricated on site so that all sheet piling could be stacked with a minimum of required space during transport. To prove their bearing capacity, a statical vertical load test was carried out which confirmed the calculated values and finally did verify the values estimated during the design calculations.

The installation of the sheet piling was completed within the time frame of 6 weeks as initially planned. The excellent preparation of this project from the design phase to the execution of the structure took advantage of a high degree of prefabrication and lead to a succesful completion.

Total quantity of steel: 3580 metric tons

Owner: Nakheel
Contractor: Belhasa Six Construct L.L.C.
Designer: Halcrow International Partnership

More information about this project can be found in this case study (PDF, 1.48 MB).

Dubai office:

ArcelorMittal Projects | Middle East & India
Dubai Steel Trading Co. LLC (ANC Compound)
P.O. Box 53608
Al Quoz Industrial Area 4
Dubai - United Arab Emirates

T  +971 4 347 4411
F  +971 4 347 2521