The Harelbeke lock on the river Lys is part of the Seine-Scheldt project, linking the Seine basin in the Paris region with the Scheldt basin in the Antwerp region, for vessels up to ECMT class Vb (4,500 tonnes). The reconstruction of the lock and its interconnected weir, and simultaneously the reassessment of the adjacing urban site with its waterfront and two bridges, was put out to tender by means of a Design & Build procedure.
The winning project achieved a minimum of downtime for the shipping traffic by constructing a temporary lock and weir using temporary sheet piles and tubular combined walls. Permanent sheet piles and combi walls will be used for bank protection and fish steps. The new lock will be 230m long, 12.5m wide, 4.7m deep and will be build in a temporary building pit of tubular combined walls and cofferdams of steel sheet piles.
The right bank of the building pit for the new lock consists of a sheet pile cofferdam.
A part of this cofferdam is executed with 1160 tons of our new AZ50-700 profile with lengths of 21.7 and 22.2 m in steel grade S355GP.
In total, Projects will deliver 17.500 tonnes of steel foundation elements for this project:
Owner: Flemish Government (Waterwegen en Zeekanaal)
Main contractor: Herbosch-Kiere nv / Jan de Nul nv