Biggest inland navigation lock in Europe
The fourth lock of Ternaaien connects the Albert Canal with the Maas at the border between the Netherlands and Belgium and has solved the former bottleneck. The capacity between the Albert Canal and the Dutch Maas was raised from 2000 tonne- to 9000 tonne-convoys.
The lock is huge: 225 metre long, 25 metre wide and with a difference in height of no less than 14 metre. Such gigantic lock obviously requires an enormous sheet pile wall to demarcate the lock wall. A work that fitted us like a glove. We installed over 5,600 sheet piles, both short and long, varying between 3.70 and 33.50 metre. If you would lay them one after the other, this would cover a distance of 67 km, the total length of our Belgian coastline. Expressed in weight, this represents a formidable 10,495 tonnes of steel.
