2021

De
MOL
Magazine of Dispuut Geo-Engineering “De Ondergrondse”
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 FROM THE BOARD
Dear readers of de Mol,
In our last edition, we talked about hoping
to organize more in-person events for our
members and now that our wish is coming
true, we cannot help but to be excited for
the future to come! Our agenda is getting
fuller and fuller with a lot of fun activities.
Last quarter was already a sneak peak of
how it should normally be, with the La-
tex workshop, our delightful times at the
Hangout and even our last geo-drinks
which was already at our own geo-corner!
Where we served the beers directly from
the climate room. I promise you; no lab
samples were sacrificed in the process. We
were very happy to see the staff, profes-
sors and PhD students taking part on the
event as well and we hope their presence
will be a constant from now on. It felt so
good to be back home.
by Lisa: Lisa van der Burg
In the coming weeks, de Ondergrondse
has a lot of fun things in store. Starting
with some interesting trainings and lec-
tures from our partner companies. Fol-
lowed by a site visit to a cool project. For
the summer, the GETA committee is al-
ready busy planning the study trip abroad.
Soon we will provide more information
about the travel dates of this amazing
week. So, keep an eye on our Instagram to
get more information about the activities!
De Ondergrondse wishes you good luck
with studying for your exam week, thesis,
or internship! Hope to see you soon at one
of our next events

EDITORIAL
by Jur Peerden
Dear reader,
The fourth article contains two in-
Welkom to the fourth issue of ‘de Mol’ ternship stories of Bertie Rtiema and Joris
2021. Luckily, the Netherlands is opening Lieftinck. Both did there internship in Nor-
up again and the first geo-drinks could be way and will talk about there experience.
held back at the faculty.
This is the last issue from the current Mol
You can find again 4 articles in this issue committee. We hope you have enjoyed
of De Mol. The first article is about opti- the issue and that you have got a bet-
mising pile design in the Neterlands. In the ter inside in the geo-engineering master.
article Professor Ken Gavin writes about We have enjoyed making the mol for
how we can close the knowledge gap of you. But now it is time to pass the ba-
deep foundation behaviour. ton to the next Mol committee. We wish
The second article is from Crux. The them good luck making the next Mols.
article is about a sister company of Crux,
namely CEMS. CEMS wants to propel the
geotechnical engineering community into-
the 21st century, using geotechnical soft-
ware.
The third article is a thesis talk from
Dianne Jacobs. Her master thesis was
about pile load tests on timber piles in
Amsterdam.
3 From the Board | Editorial
 CONTENTS

5
Optimising pile design in the Netherlands 5
By Ken Gavin

CRUX Engineering Micro Services 7

Pile load test on timber piles in Amsterdam 9

By Dianne Jacobs

Internship in Norway
By Bertie Rietema and Joris Lieftinck
11
9

11
 Optimising Pile Design in the Netherlands
Background
FACULTY CORNER
The Chair of Subsurface Engineering
are working closely with Port of Rotterdam,
Rijkswaterstaat, Deltares and a number of
industry partners in the InPAD project (In-
vestigation of the Axial Capacity of Piles
in Sand). The aim is to update pile design
codes in the Netherlands. There is a knowl-
edge gap surrounding key aspects of deep
foundation behaviour that include:
1. What is the impact of friction fatigue
on shaft resistance?
2. Are limiting qc values necessary for
estimating shaft resistance?
3. Is it appropriate to have a limiting
value on the pile base resistance (currently
15 MPa)?
InPAD will use a combination of full-scale
field tests, centrifuge and numerical model-
ling in conjunction with advanced statistical
approaches to provide accurate calculation
procedures to determine the axial capacity
of a pile. The first field test programme per-
formed at Massvlakte II area in the Port of
Rotterdam. This involved axial load tests on
instrumented driven precast concrete, Vi-
bro and Screw Injection Piles, SiP with pen-
etration depths of ~35m and failure loads
up to 25 MN. In addition to contributing to
the general objectives of the InPAD project,
the tests specifically were designed to allow
optimisation of the pile design at the Ama-
liahaven Quay wall project.
by Ken Gavin
Figure 2: Load test set-up
Ground conditions and test procedures
The ground conditions, See Figure
1 consist of reclaimed sand deposits over
a 2 to 4 m deposit of stiff clay (around 20m
below ground level) which is in-turn un-
derlain by dense Pleistocene sands, with
cone end resistance, qc values in the range
40 to 80 MPa. The national pile test, NPR
guidelines require that load tests be per-
formed on at least three identical piles and
three precast and four each of the vibro
and screw-injection pile types were tested.
The founding level of the piles is shown in
Figure 1. The load tests were performed
using maintained load steps, reaction was
provided by drilled tension anchors con-
nected to the load frame shown in Figure
2. The maximum test load varied by pile
type increasing from 7 MN for the vibro
piles to 25 MN for the screw injection piles.
The piles were instrumented with fiber op-
tic gauges that allow separation of the pile
base and shaft resistance. In addition the
distribution of shaft with depth can be
evaluated to determine the impact of fric-
tion fatigue on the mobilised resistance.

Figure 1: CPT profile at the test site

5 Faculty Corner
Key findings
By loading the piles to failure a
number of important research questions
have been addressed. Findings to date
include, (i) the precast piles exhibited fric-
tion fatigue when installed in dense sand,
in contrast no friction fatigue was evident
for the SiP and Vibro pile types. Local shaft
friction of up to 600 kPa was mobilised
by the SiP in dense sand, this compares
to a code limit of 135 kPa. (ii) When ac-
counting for residual loads the mobilised
end bearing resistance of precast concrete
piles exceeded 30 MPa, which is double
Figure 3: Full scale test
the current code limit. The very high unit
resistance and pile capacities demon-
In terms of numerical and statistical model-
strated in the test resulted in new design
ling, simulations of the pile base behaviour
methods (TUD-20). Implementing the re-
is being carried to investigate the influence
search findings in the construction of the
of layering on the pile response, support-
Quay Wall at the site in Figure 2 delivered
ing the results of the physical modelling
direct financial savings of €11m (30% cost
programme. Focus is also being placed on
reduction per foundation pile; 3.3% of to-
the use of reliability-based or probabilistic
tal project costs) and a reduction of 8,000
models for assessing pile capacity, allowing
tons of CO2. This was a very good return
for the incorporation of inherent soil vari-
on the €2.5 million financial investment in
ability into pile design. A database analysis
performing the tests.
of existing pile tests is also being carried
out to support the findings of the project
Next Steps
and make conclusions as to the appropri-
In order to change national pile
ate method for design.
design codes it is necessary to perform
instrumented pile tests in two distinct ge-
otechnical conditions. A second series of

FACULTY CORNER
full-scale load tests on precast concrete
and screw-injection pile types have been
performed at the Deltares campus.
In addition, centrifuge testing is being
carried out in the new geo-centrifuge of
Deltares. These include an investigation
into the pile response over a wide range of
cone resistances (with respect to limiting
values), the effects of soil layering around
the pile base (tests will be performed by Figure 4: Centrifuge test
means of model piles with different diam-
eters) and also the influence of the pre-
scribed loading scheme on pile capacity.

Faculty Corner 6
Amsterdam
Delft
Eindhoven

And the
winner is…
– CRUX celebrates in the new Delft office!

2021 was an exceptionally good year for the R&D developments at CRUX
Engineering. CEMS-CRUX won the Cobouw Digitalisation Award for the innovative
digital developments made in the field of geotechnical design software. And CRUX
won the ‘Waterinnovatieprijs’ (water innovation award) for climate neutrality, with
the Energy Sheet pile wall. This innovation utilizes the heat stored in surface water
and soil via sheet pile walls for heating of buildings.

CEMS
CEMS (cemsbv.nl), short for CRUX Engineering
Micro Services, is a sister company of CRUX
(cruxbv.nl) and has been established to propel the
geotechnical engineering community into the 21st
century. The current society is digitalizing quickly
but geotechnical engineers are lagging behind using
design software developed 20-30 years ago. The
current software packages are not build to be used
in a design pipeline resulting in an unnecessary
time-consuming and cumbersome process.
CEMS aims to streamline the design process by
developing standalone design tools in python for
each step in the design process, called Cores.
By offering these separate Cores via API’s, each
companies can patch these together in their own
unique way thereby making repeated steps such as
defining the soil profile multiple times, redundant.
By streamlining the design process, it becomes
more efficient and engineers have more time to
focus on the details thus optimizing the design.
Using python to streamline the design process will
not result in the redundancy of the geotechnical
engineer. On the contrary, the digitalization in this
work field has happened a long time ago – nobody
draws or calculates by hand anymore – and the
increased complexity of projects and designs calls
for specialised engineers with good evaluating skills
and broad base of knowledge.
To give an example of the products developed by
CEMS, the workflow for designing a pile foundation
for a building could start with the GTLP-Core, which
either uses the Roberson graph or an in-house
developed Machine Learning model to interpret
and classify a series of CPT’s. The acquired soil
profile is then used in PileCore to determine the
necessary length and size of the piles. Finally,
VibraCore is used which automates the necessary
risk managements of building damage in the
proximity of a project in which piles or sheet piles
are vibrated into the soil. The calculations performed
are based on the results of GTLP-Core and PileCore.
Zooming in on the calculation in VibraCore, the three
key components of the analysis are the highest
impact force for driving the pile (or sheet pile), the
dimensions of the pile and information about the
surrounding buildings. The first two components
are very easily extracted from the aforementioned
Cores and the location, dimensions and possible
monumental status is downloaded automatically
from a governmental database. This leaves time for
a closer investigation into the state of the buildings
resulting in a better and site-specific design.
Moreover, graphs, tables and maps are generated
automatically. Therefore, the layout is the same in
each new project.
Even though CEMS developed quite a few Cores
already, the work is far from over. Some of the new
projects in the pipeline are SettleCore: to calculate
settlement, FitCore: automatically fit measurements
to predict residual settlements, and ShallowCore:
automatically design shallow foundations.
Energy Sheet Pile Wall
At least as exciting as the Cores made by CEMS
is the development of the Energy Sheet pile wall
(Energie-damwand.nl) in collaboration with,
amongst others, Phil Vardon. With the climate rapidly
changing and the energy transition to sustainable
sources, CRUX is doing their part by aiming to make
the Dutch waterways CO2 neutral. The concept of
the Energy sheet pile wall is very simple: a standard
sheet pile wall is equipped with collectors, i.e. pipes
welded on the sheet pile wall on the soil side, that
act as a heat exchanger. The collectors are attached
to a heat pump that extracts the energy, which was
won from the subsurface and water. In the heat
pump, the temperature is increased so it can be used
to heat homes. The soil 6m below the surface is not
impacted by seasonal temperature changes and is
12°C all year round. Because of the energy extraction
during the winter, the subsurface temperature
is lower than the top soil and surface water
temperature. By switching off the heat extraction
by the heat pump but still letting the fluid be pump
through the system, the subsurface is reheated.
This results in an infinite heat source with very low
maintenance costs. The Energy sheet pile wall has
been applied in several projects already e.g. marina
Test setup at De Zweth in operation
Enkhuizen and ‘It Swettehûs’ in Friesland.
As predicting the yield proved to be challenging, an
investigation into the performance of the Energy
sheet pile wall is being conducted near De Zweth. A
sheet pile wall with a width of 7m has been activated
for 1.5 years, with the test ending in May. The data
collected from makes it possible to develop a
powerful design tool that we can use to equip many
kilometres of quay with energy sheet pile wall to
provide sustainable energy for the Netherlands.
VibraCore (GUI) at the VIKTOR platform
As you can make out of the many innovations we
work on, CRUX is continuously moving forward.
At this moment, we are already working on a new
award-winning project ;-), MODUPS, a way of
measuring the total deformation of a quay by means
of photogrammetry (Modups.nl). Moreover, due to
the wide spread reputation of CRUX, we are hired
for many different types of projects, ranging from
designing foundations for 70m high buildings to
massive infrastructural projects and from reinforcing
dikes to monitoring deformations of the quays in
Amsterdam. With a brand new office located at the
Phoenixstraat in Delft, and offices in Amsterdam
and Eindhoven, we are located close to many of the
projects we work on. Moreover, the possibility is
being offered regularly to visit these projects. This,
in combination with the innovations and enough
time and support to investigate and learn, makes
CRUX an excellent choice for young professionals
who want to develop themselves in all aspects of
geo-engineering. Check out our internships or thesis
subjects at the Ondergrondse if you want to be part
of the R&D that is performed at CRUX Engineering.
©2022 – CRUX Engineering BV info@cruxbv.nl
+31 (0)20 4943070 cruxbv.nl
 Pile Load Tests on Timber Piles in Amsterdam
Finding a graduation topic
Thesis Talk
In the second period of the academ-
ic year 2020-2021, I started my internship at
the engineering department of the Munic-
ipality of Rotterdam. Since there were still
COVID measures, I had to work from home
a lot. In spite of the COVID measures, there
were still some opportunities when I could
visit a project. The main objective of my in-
ternship was to automate the analysis of
pile load test data.
The biggest project I was involved with was
the project Metro aan Zee in Hoek van Hol-
land. The metro line will be extended until
the beach of Hoek van Holland. The geo-
technical engineers were involved in the
section where a short tunnel needed to be
constructed. A soil mix wall needed to be
constructed, and I performed some calcula-
tions on the required pre-stress of the an-
chors.
During the internship, I enjoyed working on
topics related to soil-structure interaction,
so I started to look for graduation topics in
that area. I was in contact with other com-
panies, but in the end the topic that the
Municipality had available sounded most
interesting to me. The subsidence problem
in Amsterdam always interested me, and
the topic was also very concrete and rele-
vant.
Figure 1 Mobilisation shaft resistance (5)
as percentage of maximum shaft resist-
ance against pile tip settlement (4). (NEN
9997-1 + C2, 2017)
9 Thesis Talk
by Dianne Jacobs
Introduction
My graduation topic was part of
a big project in Amsterdam: Program-
ma Bruggen en Kademuren (Program
for Bridges and Quay Walls). The design
bearing capacity of the pile foundations
of the old bridges and quay walls are of-
ten unknown, and thus also the remaining
bearing capacity. Part of the project con-
sisted of pile load testing on new timber
piles that were instrumented with fibre
optic sensors. Siavash Honardar already
studied the compression load tests in his
graduation thesis. I focussed on the tensile
load tests to study the influence of nega-
tive skin friction on the bearing capacity of
the timber piles. The pile load tests were
already performed, so I had to focus on
analysing the acquired data and compar-
ing the results with the current NEN code.
Figure 1 shows the mobilisation curves of
the shaft friction mobilised along the pile
shaft. Timber piles behave along curve 1,
so at 10 mm displacement the maximum
shaft friction is expected.
Pile load tests
Negative skin friction develops over
many years. Tensile load tests can simulate
similar behaviour, but take less time. The
direction of movement of the pile with re-
spect to the soil is the same in both situa-
tions. And it is assumed that the maximum
friction that will be measured during the
tensile load test is similar to the maximum
negative skin friction that will occur during
the years. The piles were then tested un-
til geotechnical failure: the moment when
the pile loses contact with the soil.
The piles were instrumented with fibre op-
tic sensors. These sensors can measure the
strain in the pile over a small section in the
pile. So you get a very detailed overview of
how the forces induced on the pile are dis-
tributed through the pile. he test data was
processed to create mobilisation curves
for every soil layer.
 Figure 2 Shaft friction development of all four piles
The curves show how much movement of
the pile is needed to mobilise the maxi-
mum shaft friction along the pile. Then I
compared the mobilisation curves with
the mobilisation curve mentioned in NEN-
9997-1. Figure 2 shows that on average,
less displacement was needed to create
the maximum shaft friction in the clay lay-
er than was expected from the NEN code.
The second comparison with NEN 9997-1
was between the calculated value of neg-
ative skin friction based on the test data
and the calculated negative skin friction
based on the formula from the NEN with
the known soil data. Figure 3 shows this
comparison. The maximum shaft friction
shown in the mobilisation curves was
combined with the soil layer thickness and
circumference of the pile to calculate the
negative skin friction.
The maximum shaft friction is also used
to calculate the αt factors for the timber
piles. In accordance with NEN 9997-1,
there should be tests on other sites to ver-
ify these found αt values.
Conclusion
The negative skin friction calculat-
ed from the test data showed similar val-
ues compared to the values when using the
formula from NEN 9997-1. The yellow bars
in Figure 3 show the negative skin friction
based on the tensile load test data. The
green bars represent the negative skin fric-
tion based on the current NEN code, where
a factor of 0.25 should be used for timber
piles. For all four piles this causes an overes-
timation of the negative skin friction com-
pared to the test data. However, when the
0.25 factor is omitted, this leads to an un-
derestimation of the negative skin friction.
Based on these results it can be concluded
that the current formula in NEN 9997-1 for
negative skin friction is a good approxima-
tion, but the 0.25 factor might be lowered
to 0.22. Further pile load tests should be
performed to verify that this factor can be
Thesis Talk
decreased.
References
NEN 9997-1 + C2 (2017). Normcommissie
351 006 ‘Geotechniek’.
Figure 3 Comparison
negative skin friction
in 4 piles based on test
data and NEN calculated
method
Thesis Talk 10
 Internship in Norway
Heihei! That’s the typical greeting in Norway.
Currently I, Bertie Rietema, am doing in intern-
INTERNATIONAL GEOCORNER
ship at NGI, the Norwegian Geotechnical Insti-
tute in Oslo. I am working in the offshore ener-
gy department on modelling chain movements.
What does this have to do with geotechnical
engineering?
Internship Assignment
First, let me explain why I am here. NGI is one of
the research institutions that is a partner in SFI
Blues, which aims at creating new types of float-
ing structures for renewable energy, aquaculture
and coastal infrastructure. One of the work pack-
ages concerns the anchoring of these structures,
how can this be done in the most optimal way?
In specific, my internship looked into trench-
ing which is the erosion of the seafloor around
the anchor chain due to dynamic loading of
the structure (e.g. wave and wind loads). These
trenches could impact the bearing capacity of
the anchor itself. To model the development of
the trench, my supervisor is designing a finite el-
ement model which captures the movement of
the chain due to static and dynamic loading and
its effect on (think of softening and liquifying)
the surrounding soil. I was testing the model,
thinking of improvements it and documenting
its workings.
Ofcourse, I could go more into depth, however
I think it will be nicer to save this for a real life
conversation. Please let me know if you want to
know more about the assignment or NGI.
Internship Abroad
Finding an internship abroad was a bit challeng-
ing, however I would still recommend it! It’s re-
ally nice to get an understanding of what it’s like
to actually work at a company. My first step was
to think about what kind of topics within the ge-
otechnical engineering field I like, after which I
planned a meeting with Dominque to ask what
would be a good approach to find a suiting com-
11 International Geocorner
pany abroad. Obviously, you can also contact a
company that you already know immediately!
Don’t forget to apply for funding from Erasmus if
you go to a EU country (or Norway, which is not
a member of the EU but still counts!)
Norway
The sceneries here are truly wonderful. Norway
has so much breath-taking nature, it keeps on
surprising me. Although I am in Norway in Q2,
the darkest time of the year, all the little city lights
keep me cheerful. It’s cold and super slippery
due to all the snow and ice, I fell a few times...
However, the snow and ice are the opportunity
for winter activities, such as downhill and cross
country skiing, ice skating or sledging. A warm
hot choco or glögg (a drink that tastes like glüh-
wein, with almonds and raisins) is the perfect way
to get cosy afterwards.
People here are super sporty and healthy. While
hiking through the mountains (which they can
hills, however compared to the Netherlands it’s
definitely a mountain in my opinion) people,
sometimes even in their sixties, speed past you.
Norwegians are somehow able to run on ice, in-
credible…
Sadly, due to COVID NGIs julebord (a crazy
Christmas party with free alcohol, where employ-
ees apparently puke in front of their bosses) was
cancelled. Still, the measures are less strict than
in the Netherlands so I should consider myself to
be lucky to be here.
All in all, Oslo is a wonderful city with so many
things to do, beautiful nature all around the
city (within reach!) and a great spot to move to
temporarily! Please visit this city if you have the
chance, you might even run into a class mate.
Hi! I am Joris Lieftinck and I am in my second
year of the master track Geo-Engineering.
During Q2 this year I have done a 3-month
internship abroad in Trondheim, Norway. I
would love to share some of my experienc-
es!
My internship was at SINTEF Community in
Trondheim. SINTEF Community is an independ-
ent research organization for sustainable devel-
opment of buildings, infrastructure, and mobility.
I am part of the rock mechanics and geotechnics
group. This group offers research, advice, labora-
tory work, field investigations, numerical analysis,
and risk analysis in sustainable solutions within
tunnels and underground technology in rocks.
Most of my colleagues have a civil engineering
background and the majority also has a PhD.
The majority of the geo-engineering courses in
Delft are focused on soil. As fun as this is, I also
wanted to learn and work more with rock engi-
neering and its tunneling applications. This exper-
tise is not too popular in the Netherlands. There-
fore, I was looking for an internship abroad. After
some emails with teachers, Dominique referred
me to Dirk van Oosterhout, a graduate from our
study, who works currently for SINTEF. Via Dirk I
came in contact with SINTEF and was invited for a
few online introductory meetings and eventually
I was able to do my internship there.
I have been working on an ongoing project at
SINTEF, called NoRSTRESS, which aims to evalu-
ate and improve knowledge of current and new
in-situ rock stress measurements and create an
in-situ Norwegian rock stress database and GIS
for sustainable development for Hydroelectric
power. Additionally, I have done a 3D numerical
analysis, using the FLAC3D software, of brittle
failure in a tunnel based on one of the rock stress
measurement reports. This means I have been
learning about how to understand SINTEF rock
measurements techniques and reports, sometime
assisting laboratory experiments, making a data-
base instruction guide, working with QGIS, and
working with FLAC3D.
The working culture in SINTEF is very relaxed but
also very efficient. The working days are generally
from 9:00 to 16:00 and free time in the weekends.
My colleges are very nice and helpful, and do not
hesitate to speak English instead of Norwegian. I
had one supervisor who helps me during my pro-
ject, one supervisor helping me to get to know
people and activities in Trondheim, and one su-
pervisor helping me around in the company and
provided an apartment for me during my stay in
Trondheim.
Norway has also been a preferred country for
me to go to sometime, as I heard great stories
about the nature and people there. These stories
did not disappoint. Since my time here in Trond-
heim there has been snow for almost the entire
period, creating beautiful landscapes existing of
INTERNATIONAL GEOCORNER
snow-covered pine trees and mountains. This al-
lowed me to do some downhill skiing for a week
during the Christmas break and also casually after
work sometimes with some colleagues. During
winter in Trondheim, it can be quite cold and the
days are very short, which took some time to get
used to. However, during a few of these dark days
I have been fortune enough to witness the North-
ern Lights, which was an incredible experience.
I have been invited to a yearly SINTEF conference
and also their Christmas dinner, which contained
lot of Norwegian foods and a lot of drinks (this
was before the recent COVID outbreak). It was
also a very nice moment for me to know all my
colleagues better. The Trondheim Christmas mar-
ket gave me a perfect opportunity to make my
own typical Norwegian style Christmas dinner for
my family, which came to visit me during Christ-
mas. The Norwegians are very nice, well-spoken,
and almost all have a small cabin somewhere in
the woods or mountains apparently.
From the end of December more people started
working from home due to COVID measures, but
I was still allowed to come to the office with only
a handful of others, the communications went on
via Teams. Luckily, the city itself was not on lock-
down and I was still able to go to shops, restau-
rants, and do outdoor activities.
My experience of an internship abroad in Trond-
heim has been very positive and at SINTEF I was
able to improve my knowledge in a new context
and learn new skills regarding rock mechanics
and in a fun and educational way. I met a lot of
new, great people and good contacts for future
work during my study and beyond.
International Geocorner 12
At GEO2 Engineering B.V. we are always up for a
good challenge!.
My name is Roshan and like to
share insights from an interesting
project I have been working on for
almost 2 years. So far that is
almost half of my career with
GEO2. The project "Opwaardering
Twentekanalen 2nd phase" started (tender) just as
the COVID pandemic had been declared. Up till
now I virtually have daily meetings with most of
the project colleagues, however have only met
them personally on a few occasions. Almost
unbelievable for this complex multidisciplinary
project.
This project comprises the second phase of
making the waterways of the Twentekanalen
more accessible for larger inland vessels. The
engineering focus lies on the main channel of the
Twentekanalen between the sluice Delden and
the ports in Enschede and the side channel to
Almelo (see yellow parts in picture). As earlier
other parts of the channels have been negatively
exposed in the media, there is an extra pressure
on our project team not to cause water leakage
and foundation failures during the construction
works and afterwards.
Rijkswaterstaat chose the combination Van Oord
– Hakkers – Beens for the execution of this
project. GEO2 Engineering B.V. is involved as
geotechnical expert via Hakkers B.V.
Along the channels a deeper bottom level is to be
achieved for which also the shore protection with
sheet piles and nature friendly riprap revetment
needs to be designed for. Note that the channel
water level is significantly higher than the
groundwater levels.
Detailed FEM calculations using PLAXIS have been
carried out for the seemingly simple shore
protection. In this way most of the identified risks
of the various disciplines could be taken into
account simultaneously. Important aspects are:
• Safety of the levee (“Waterveiligheid”),
also during construction;
• Groundwater level monitoring and taking
measures to keep it within acceptable
levels;
• Construction planning with short as
possible timing between removing the old
and installing the new shore structures,
also taking into account breading seasons,
recreational use and commercial shipping
in the waterway;
• Extensive soil investigations for detailed
geotechnical profiles and also to get a
clear overview of locations with boulder
clay and glauconite rich soils in which
sheet pile installation issues could occur;
• Triaxial testing for determining soil
(strength) parameters;
• Integral multidisciplinary design process.
After a productive period of planning and
designing the project is now under construction.
So, if you’re interested it is possible to take a look
along the Twentekanalen until the end of the
year. It is a beautiful landscape to cycle through.
By explaining a bit of this project I expect to give
you a good idea of the type of work we do.
Feel free to visit our website (www.geo2.nl) for
more interesting projects or contact us
(info@geo2.nl). Opportunities for an internship or
graduation thesis are also possible.
LONGEST TUNNELS IN THE WORLD
Gotthard Base Tunnel, Switzerland
The Gotthard Base Tunnel is the world’s
longest and deepest tunnel. It runs under
the Swiss alps between the towns of Erst-
feld in the north and Bodio in the south. The
tunnel is 57 km long and reaches a depth
of 2,300 meters. Trains reaching speeds
of up to 250 kilometers an hour can trav-
el through in 20 minutes, according to the
Swiss Travel System. The tunnel has helped
to decrease the travel time between Zurich,
Switzerland, and Milan, Italy, by an hour.
Laerdal Tunnel, Norway
The tunnel is located in North Norway and is
24.5 kilometers long, making it the world’s
longest road tunnel. To drive through takes
20 minutes. The sheer length of the tunnel
led to studies in driver psychology which
was used to evolve the design of the tun-
nel. The studies resulted in a design where
lit caverns every 6 kilometers creates var-
iation and alleviates claustrophobia and
tiredness.

Channel Tunnel, United Kingdom and

France
The Channel Tunnel is not only one, but
three tunnels. Two of them are meant for
railways and the third is for service and se-
curity purposes. The tunnel runs between
Folkestone in England and Pas-de-Calais in
northern France and is used for both freight
and passenger traffic. It changed the ge-
ography of Europe and helped reinforce
high speed rail as an alternative to short-
haul flights. It has the longest underwater
Source: Discovery uk, The longest tunnels
section of any tunnel in the world, with a
in the world.
length of nearly 38 km.

COLOPHON
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2628 CN Delft

T | 015 - 278 2778

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