IJmuiden Sea Lock Project – June update

OpenIJ – a consortium of construction companies building the world’s largest sea lock in IJmuiden, the Netherlands – and the Port of Amsterdam recently gave the latest update on the project status.

According to the update, the following works will be carried out in June.

The western part of the Middle Lock island will be cleared; the cofferdam for the lock sill of the outer head will be removed.

Also, testing will be carried out on the new lock gates in Amsterdam and IJmuiden and riverbed protection will be installed behind the new fender system of the inner head of the Middle Lock.

In the coming period the western part of the Middle Lock island will be cleared. Various objects in this area will be dismantled and removed, such as the old flood defence structure, the old public road, several items in the subsoil, and the rip-rap protection (basalt and stone rubble) of the shore and underwater slope of the island.

In this way, the island will be made ready to be dredged away in its entirety by cutter dredger ‘De Biesbosch’ at a later date. In the final situation, this area will become the future approach channel to the new sea lock.

As reported, the lock sill cofferdam of the outer lock gate chamber will be removed in the coming period. This removal will take place in two phases.

Riverbed protection near Middle lock

Scheduled maintenance works will be carried out by multi-technical services provider SPIE during a closure of the Middle Lock.

In this period, OpenIJ will apply riverbed protection behind the new fender system of the inner head of the Middle Lock. Part of these activities will be carried out by a crane ship while a duty cycle crane will be working on the dividing dam – the strip of land next to the fender system.

The duty cycle crane will carry out the necessary digging work and will also assist the crane ship to position the riverbed protection elements in the correct place.