U. S. Navy Double Deck Piers

Most of the U.S. Navy's pier infrastructure was built in the 1940s and 1950s. Given the age of these piers and advent of newer classes of warships, the Navy has embarked upon an ambitious recapitalization effort. In conjunction with this, a question was posed to the Naval Audit Service as to whether the Navy should adopt a single standard of pier construction. After much study, the Naval Audit Service concluded that a single standard should not be adopted, giving the various Navy regions sufficient latitude to build the type of pier that best meets their operational and local needs. Naval Station Norfolk has chosen to replace its aging piers with double deck piers. Double deck piers have been found to be advantageous in a number of ways. The primary advantage of the double deck piers is to separate operations and utilities functions on different decks. By dedicating the lower deck to utilities the upper deck can be used solely for various operations such as personnel ingress/egress, mobile crane operations, and maintenance. Providing two decks allows for better pier/ship interface. The higher deck creates better mooring configurations by flattening the mooring line angle, particularly in heavy weather mooring situations. To date Piers 2, 6, and 7 have been completed with Piers 2 and 6 coming on line in late 2001. Pier 7 was just completed in 2005. Pier 11 is currently under construction and Pier 15 is in the planning stages. This paper will discuss some of the subtle improvements that have been made as successive piers have been designed. It will also provide an overview of some of the innovative features of the piers to include piling, superstructure, mooring hardware, fendering, hotel services, and demolition.