The Durban Dig-Out Port, Project Durban

The Durban Dig-Out Port, Project Durban

Steeneken, S.
De Haan, F.
De Koning, R.
Gijsman, R.
Le, T.

Civil Engineering and Geosciences

2015-04-14

The Port of Durban is South Africa's premier port and hub of the region, especially for the Johannesburg (Gauteng Province) area. The current port will eventually not be sufficient to handle the capacity demand. The focus is on the development of a new port in the direct surroundings of Durban. A suitable new location is found at the old international airport. The Durban Dig-out Port is designed to cover a yearly container throughput of 10,000,000 TEU, a yearly liquid bulk throughput of 5,000,000 kL and 300,000 vehicles throughput per year. The governing vessel for the design is a 22,000 TEU container vessel with a length of 430 m, a width of 43.4 m and a draft of 16.3 m. The choice for the 22,000 TEU design vessel is reviewed. Based on global developments in ship manufacturing and a brief look at the developments in South Africa's container trade it is concluded that the 22,000 TEU vessel is recommended for the design of the port. In the proposed port layout the entrance channel is aligned such that it gives possibilities to bring the Isipingo estuary and its protected mangroves back to life. New land becomes available for an extension of the mangrove area and a new natural equilibrium between fresh and salt water inflow can be developed. The direction of the entrance channel also results in the central location of the turning circle and therefore the basins are relatively short. This makes manoeuvring for the vessels in the port convenient. A slight bend in the entrance channel is proposed to mitigate the wave action in the port. A straight entrance channel would lead to large downtime and has a direct impact on the port efficiency. The southern swell waves cannot enter the port due to the breakwaters and the eastern wind waves are either absorbed at the inside of the southern breakwater or at the safety beach at the end of the turning circle. The proposed sand bypass system makes sure that the coastal evolution is sustainable. In the proposed layout two configurations for the breakwaters are distinguished in terms of orientation and length. The proposed breakwaters are based on either a relatively high (10 kn) or low (6 kn) maximum vessel entrance speed. From research with a simplified wave model it is concluded that the shorter breakwaters cause downtime for the liquid bulk terminal during storm conditions from the south. During normal conditions it is however found that the liquid bulk terminal can be operational for more than 99% of the time. Next to that, it is found from the design of the breakwaters' cross sections that the breakwater dimensions become significantly larger at greater depths. However both breakwaters are found stable with numerical stability analysis and in combination with the result of the wave model it is concluded that the shorter configuration is preferred. This leads to significantly lower construction costs and the downtime of the liquid bulk terminal is limited.

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TU Delft, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences

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(c) 2015 Steeneken, S.
De Haan, F.
De Koning, R.
Gijsman, R.
Le, T.