Port Master Planning and Engineering

Maritime Industry

The maritime industry plays a crucial role, especially in the energy and trade sectors. Optimized designs of ports, terminals, jetties, shipyards and other marine structures significantly improve performance and reduces investment costs of projects. Considering time and cost constraints, rough and challenging hydraulic conditions and environmental impacts associated with these complex projects, expert knowledge and innovative solutions are required to enable optimum design.

Ports and Waterway Design

Port entrances often demand breakwaters for ensuring a calm wave climate in the port and reducing siltation of the port basin and its access channel. The layout scheme of a port breakwater and access channel is an important balance between dredging costs, breakwater construction costs, nautical aspects and wave disturbance inside the port. For new port development, the location selection is also important as this depends on natural sheltering, vicinity to both current infrastructure and required hinterland.

Breakwater Design

In general, breakwater structures bear high investment costs in port development projects and significantly influence the correct functioning of the port. The breakwater design, layout and cross-sectional design are therefore critical in maritime projects. This requires a broad experience and expertise in port and breakwater design, as well as wave disturbance, nautical aspects and environmental impacts. CDR offers this expertise and required knowledge by our experienced in-house staff and highly specialized partners.

Approach

A Port Master Plan integrates the planning and organisation of the physical infrastructure, operations, management and services of a port. CDR International has a focus on the physical aspects of a port, as these aspects are the least flexible to adjust and adapt once they have been implemented.
The spatial configuration of the port elements is key in that regard. A suitable development of the port through stages is considered for possible future demands in accordance with local and global economic scenarios.

The layout scheme of a port breakwater and access channel is an important balance between dredging costs, breakwater construction costs, nautical aspects and wave disturbance inside the port.
All relevant spatial elements of a port plan are being incorporated into one spatial database (GIS-based). This database contains all descriptive, prescriptive and quantitative information of the port elements (if required on different scale levels) and this database enables quick re-iterations of the design.

Services

CDR can provide the following services in the field of Port Master Planning and Engineering:

  • (Pre-)feasibility studies
  • GIS-based site allocation studies
  • Downtime analysis and determination of optimal port layout regarding economic and environmental aspects; breakwaters in combination with approach channel, (turning) basins, jetties and quays.
  • Demand and supply studies
  • Conducting topographic & bathymetric surveys & charting
  • Considering transhipment options
  • Strengthening existing hinterland corridors and developing new corridors
  • Construction methodologies and building materials of breakwaters
  • Navigational and nautical aspects for incoming and departing vessels
  • Hydraulic stability of the structures armouring

Port Master Planning and Engineering