All-round foundation company continues throughout summer

While half of the Netherlands enjoyed the summer vacations, work at Knol Akkrum continued unabated. The all-round foundation company completed two beautiful projects during the summer period, taking full advantage of the synergy between the various business units: foundations, structural work and concrete construction. Cosun Beet has now been completed, trailer parking ArenaPoort is still in full swing.

At Cosun Beet, all of Knol's expertise came together. "The sugar factory has a big task to make the factory more sustainable," says Jappie Koopmans of Knol Akkrum. "To this end, a completely new MVR (Mechanical Vapor Recovery) plant is being built in a new building no less than 36 meters high. The strength of the existing sheet piling was insufficient for the design life of the new MVR due to material thickness degradation. The retaining strength of the existing anchor walls was also insufficient and would also be adversely affected by excavation for basements and slab foundations of the MVR building. Thus, the quay wall had to be reinforced over a length of approximately 60 meters. It was up to us to design and install the new structure from the water. And in a very short space of time in the middle of the summer.

New quay wall

Knol initially created a temporary tub in the water to relieve and secure the existing quay wall. "Then we installed a combi wall, consisting of nineteen tubular piles, each 144 centimeters in diameter and 15 meters long. They weigh about 14 tons each and were installed with our 80-ton wire crane from our own pontoon. The auxiliary frames were prepared entirely in our construction shed in Akkrum. Finally, we vibrated in the sheet piles between the tubular piles," Koopmans explains, adding that the combi wall is so heavy because it is a free-standing wall. Because of the newly planned foundations and all kinds of cables and pipes behind it, the wall could not be anchored. After installing the combi wall, Knol Akkrum's concrete construction department poured the piles and made the concrete cover gap that closes the gap between the new quay wall and the removed old quay. "It's now one nice, tight quay that will be completed neatly on schedule in mid-October. That tight deadline has to do with the thick juice and beet campaign."

Trailer Parking

The ArenaPoort trailer parking project also continued unabated during the summer period. Knol Akkrum worked here on behalf of Reimert Bouw & Infrastructuur on the redesign of the parking lot for buses and trucks, just behind the Ziggo Dome. "Part of the project also included moving the bus lane," Koopmans says. "Because we were dealing with a lot of height differences here, we installed a total of 340 linear meters of sheet piling with our 50-ton wire crane. Behind that, we installed a total of 84 load-bearing anchors with our clapboard rig. Everything was welded in place with purlins and heavy steel structures. In addition, we made the penetrations to restore the drainage of the parking lot. All in all, quite an extensive job for which we only had seven weeks, right during the school vacations."

Both projects were Knol Akkrum's two highlights during the summer vacation. And speaking of highlights, a "construction kit" has now arrived for the 80-ton crane used at Cosun Beet, says Koopmans. "We can now convert the machine into a PD rig and soon use it to drive piles about 30 meters long. It will be the company's flagship."