Cellular Pier Rehabilitation Design

Steel sheet pile cellular piers and bulkheads have served as an integral part of modern marine infrastructure and are commonplace at ports, shipyards, and marine terminals across the globe. Steel sheet pile structures in the marine environment will generally reach their service life as a result of significant deterioration of the steel elements which typically originates within the corrosion aggressive tidal zone. This corrosion generally necessitates the repair, replacement, or reconstruction of the structure at significant cost to the owner. Unlike linear bulkheads and other similar steel structures, repairs to steel cells add an additional challenge due to the interconnection and interdependence of adjacent cells. Solutions utilized in the past include over-sheeting or under-sheeting existing steel cells to create a new structure and are often not a viable solution due to structural pilings within the cells supporting pier. Similarly, demolition and replacement of a cellular structure can be difficult and costly. The cellular pier discussed herein is one such case where neither demolition nor installing new cells was an option. This paper illustrates a rehabilitation solution which re-faces the solid fill cellular pier but relies upon the remaining capacity of the existing deteriorated structure to reduce loading conditions on the new linear steel replacement wall.