Wharves

Wharf and Pier Structures

We provide design and analysis services for wharf and pier structures. Our experience includes the design of wharf and pier structures for large earthquake loads, including cast-in-place and precast concrete systems, as well as steel systems. Projects include a 426-foot wharf in Redwood City, a 550-foot wharf at the Port of West Sacramento that supports a cement unloader, over 5,000 feet of wharves at the Port of Oakland that support container cranes, and a MOTEMS-compliant wharf. The MOTEMS wharf permits continued operations during construction by fabricating most of the structures off-site and installing prefabricated components between vessel calls.

We evaluated all of the wharves at the Ports of Oakland and Virginia to determine the crane rail capacities to aid the ports in their equipment decisions. We have performed evaluation studies and have justified increased crane girder capacities for over a dozen girder systems. We have performed wharf evaluations for heavy temporary loadings, e.g., moving container cranes over the wharf.

Wharf crane rails are sometimes curved. Liftech developed a program that determines the optimum rail curve geometry, which minimizes the change in crane rail gage as the crane traverses the rail. Optimizing the rail geometry can help reduce crane initial costs, reduce skidding effects, and reduce crane and rail maintenance.