Upgrade of Berth 15 for Gantry Cranes, Panama Ports Company, Balboa, Republic of Panama

Berth 15 is located along the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal in Balboa, Republic of Panama, and is owned and operated by the Panama Ports Company (PPC). Berth 15 is an existing 278-meter-long marginal wharf and is comprised of three independent segments (Segments A, B, and C) and uses both steel and concrete superstructures. The existing substructure consists of "railroad style" pier walls and reinforced concrete caissons. The wharf was built in the early 1900s by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and was used extensively by the U.S. military throughout the 20th century. The soils behind the berth are weak and have led to a slope failure in the 1940s, which had damaged the original wharf. In 2004, Intercoastal Marine, Inc. and BERGER/ABAM Engineers Inc. entered into an agreement on a design/build basis with PPC for the upgrade of Berth 15 for ship-to-shore gantry cranes. The upgrade called for the strengthening of the existing structure to support three 15.24-meter gantry cranes, widening the structure to support hatch covers, and for deepening of the berth from –9 to –13 meters. The upgrade for Segments A and C employed precast, prestressed concrete beams supported on existing reinforced concrete caissons. Significant modifications were required to the steel and concrete pile caps to transfer the crane and deck loads. The existing structure for Segment B consisted of a series of simple span girders spanning 27 meters, which was too far to support the crane wheel loads. Strengthening was done by driving new concrete piles through the existing deck and building intermediate transverse pile caps to shorten the span and integrating the piles into the structure. The new crane beams for this segment were constructed by using existing steel girders with a cast-in-place concrete in-fill beam.