At the beginning of the 21st century, the traffic jams around and through Eindhoven had increased to such an extent, that Rijkswaterstaat, the public administration in charge of the Dutch infrastructures, launched a widening of the highway and the creation of a second parallel road to separate the local traffic from the transit one.
A key part of the project consisted of constructing 16 km of noise barriers in order to reduce the nuisance of the increased traffic. Significant level differences on some sections were overcome without loss of space with sheet piling retaining walls.
The architects quickly recognized that the corroded surface of the sheet piles would form a perfect anti-graffiti surface. Hence the idea to use them as well as noise barriers. In the end, the sheet piles are everywhere: as retaining walls, as noise barriers, as foundations for transparent glass noise barriers along the bridges and as foundations for the more high-tech noise barriers separating the transit lanes from the local traffic highway.
Mainly AZ 13 sheet piles were used, with lengths ranging from 2 to 14m. They were driven with a light vibratory hammer ICE 7RF. In total, some 14 600 tons of steel sheet piles were installed for roughly 10km noise barrier wall. The final portion of this huge project finished in 2011.
More information about this project can be found in our Case Study Randweg A2.
Owner and engineer; Rijkswaterstaat
Architect: VHP stedebouwkundigen + architekten + landschapsarchitekten BV
General Contractor: Heijmans Techniek & Mobiliteit
Mannesmannweg 5
4794 SL Heijningen
The Netherlands
Tel.: +31 88 0083 700