Location: Netherlands
Discipline: Port, river & hydraulic engineering
Period: 2016 - 2019
Construction 3rd chamber Princess Beatrix lock
End of the works
September 2019
Initial work on the 3rd lock chamber
February 2019
Installation of the first gate in the lock
August 2018
First gates left China
May 2018
Start of construction of the lock
September 2016
Start of study
January 2016
The Princess Beatrix lock is the largest monumental inland navigation lock in the Netherlands and is located in the Lekkanaal near Nieuwegein. This canal is the principal direct waterway link between the ports of Rotterdam and Amsterdam. As increasingly larger ships used the Lekkanaal, the current lock threatened to become a bottleneck. The 2 existing chambers were therefore extended with a third lock chamber, which will be fitted on the east side. The outer ports of the lock and the Lekkanaal were also widened and the road infrastructure around the lock was adapted where necessary.
The new chamber is longer (270m), wider (25m) and deeper (for ships with a draught of up to 4m) than the existing one and is designed to be inconspicuous, like a ‘cut’ through the landscape. By opting for double roller shutters, there was no need to build new lifting towers, meaning the existing lock can retain its monumental character.
Thanks to our many years of experience and expertise, SBE’s role within the project was to design the lock gates. The SBE design team, together with LievenseCSO, advised the client in the consideration of different types of lock gates and possible lock configurations. Subsequently, SBE took on the design of the lock gates, from the tendering phase up to and including the construction design. The result is a beautiful lock that meets the needs of the future.
