Evaluation and Repair of a Damaged Sheet Pile Barge Dock

This paper will present a case study of the evaluation and repair of a barge dock on the Ohio River. The dock facilitates the delivery by barge of raw materials for a major manufacturer. The dock is a three-sided steel sheet pile wall structure and was constructed in the early 1990s. A failure occurred in the upstream wall in 2015 that resulted in that wall bowing out horizontally and rotating vertically, such that the top of the wall is now located approximately 15 ft (4.6 m) upstream of its original position. Several of the tie rods that supported the wall were broken. However, the sheet pile remained intact, and complete failure of the wall did not occur. Later tie rod inspections revealed that additional tie-rod failures continued to occur, calling into question the long-term stability of the dock. This paper aims to present the methods used to evaluate the condition of the dock and develop a strategy for its repair and continued long-term safe use. This paper will address issues that arose during the project related to tie-rod failures, flooding, scour protection, corrosion protection, and the susceptibility of high-strength steels to hydrogen embrittlement and stress corrosion cracking.