Paulsboro Marine Terminal Wharf Design and Construction

The construction of the wharf at the Paulsboro Marine Terminal, in Paulsboro, NJ, began in the winter of 2014. There have been many obstacles to overcome before the first pile could be driven into the Delaware River. This paper discusses the planning, design, and construction of the wharf. The cast-in-place concrete deck is supported by precast concrete planks and cast-in-place concrete caps that are built atop precast concrete piles. Full build out of the wharf will include three deep water ship berths and a barge berth. The live load capacity of the deck is 1,500 pounds per square foot with specific heavy lift areas capable of supporting higher loads. A freight rail and gantry crane are also planned to be located on the wharf. A separate rail access trestle and a combination sheet pile wall was required to protect environmentally sensitive areas around the project site. The South Jersey Port Corporation (SJPC) – an agency of the State of New Jersey - in conjunction with the Gloucester County Improvement Authority (GCIA) and the Borough of Paulsboro is in the process of redeveloping the former British Petroleum (BP) Oil Terminal and the adjacent former Essex Industrial Chemicals, Inc. (Essex) properties into a new, deep-water marine terminal with associated processing, distribution, assembly and intermodal operations that will be called the Paulsboro Marine Terminal. Upon completion, the Terminal will cover 200 acres of land and include a deep-water wharf on the waterside of the property. The landside improvements include a new bridge and roadways providing direct interstate access, rail and utility infrastructure along with other associated civil improvements to control site drainage. Full build out of the wharf will include three deep water ship berths along the Delaware River and one barge berth along the upriver side of the wharf, which turns to run parallel the adjacent Mantua Creek. The total length of new waterside berth space will be over 2,500 feet. Supported on over 2,300 precast concrete piles the wharf was designed to carry a uniform live load of 1,500 pounds per square foot and load combinations from a variety of cranes and other cargo handling equipment. A special design was incorporated for two heavy loading areas extending the length of the wharf to account for the propping loads of a 200-ton mobile harbor crane. The design also accounted for the future inclusion of a gantry crane with a gage between the rails of 100 feet. A train rail track is also included on the wharf to allow direct loading of project cargo to rail. The train rail track was designed to carry a live loading equivalent to the Cooper E-100. Due to permitting requirements, it was necessary to construct the wharf as a pile supported deck over open water approximately 150 feet from the original shoreline. Therefore, standalone trestles are required to provide rail and vehicle access to the wharf. The rail trestle carries a curved portion of the rail and is supported on independent pile bents connected together using precast concrete bulb-tee beams. The wharf is supported on twenty-four (24) inch square prestressed concrete pilings that rely on both end bearing and skin friction to resist a maximum ultimate load of 1,800 kips. Pile bents were spaced at approximately fifteen (15) feet and support precast deck planks with a cast-in-place topping slab. The wharf was designed to handle 68,000 DWT vessels with a draft of forty-five (45) feet, which will be the maximum draft in the Delaware River once the deepening is completed in 2017. Bollards consisted of 200 ton double-bit bollards spaced at approximately sixty feet. Rubber cone fenders with prefabricated steel fender panels and UHMW facing spaced at approximately thirty feet were designed to protect the wharf during berthing.