Geotechnical engineering in the construction of the new Niederfinow ship lift

The new Niederfinow ship lift on the Havel-Oder waterway bridges a change in terrain elevation of 36 m and connects a plateau with predominantly cohesive soil with the Oderbruch, where mainly non-cohesive sediments are overlaid by cohesive and organic layers. The subsoil consists mainly of glacial soils (glacial till, meltwater and basin sediments). Additionally tertiary soils in deeper areas (tertiary sands, clays and silts as well as carbonaceous formations) and near-surface postglacial soils (holocene sands and silts as well as mud and peat) are present. The ship lift will be placed in a 13 m, in some areas up to 16 m deep excavation pit, consisting of a combined wall tied back using only one layer of ground anchors and an underwater concrete floor secured against uplift by GEWI piles within the non-cohesive sediments. Due to the small allowable deformations of the ship lift in comparison to a lock, special attention was paid to the settlement behaviour. For this purpose, extensive numerical analyses were carried out before and during construction in order to compare the results with the deformations measured during construction. In addition, extensive earthworks were carried out on high and steep embankments with corresponding construction requirements and compaction control as well as geohydraulic investigations.