Ports, Harbours & Marine Works
Quays, breakwaters and dredging — construction where the tide sets the working day.
Marine construction is heavy civils with the floor moving. The corridor works that get plant and materials to the water's edge are the shared transport methods, linked below — after that, everything floats, sinks or waits on the tide. Working windows come off the tide tables, plant arrives by barge, and a storm can take a week off the programme without asking.
The four guides in this sector cover quay walls and berths — the structures ships actually lean on; dredging and land reclamation, making ground where there was sea; marine piling and structures, founding heavy works over water; and container terminal works, the pavements, crane rails and handling infrastructure that turn a quay into a port.
What does Ports, Harbours & Marine Works cover?
Process guides in Ports, Harbours & Marine Works
- Quay Walls & Berth Construction — The wall the ship berths against — blockwork or caisson gravity walls, anchored sheet-pile and combi-walls, cast in situ capping beams carrying fenders, bollards and crane rails, with the dredged depth alongside proven by survey before the first vessel is invited in.
- Dredging & Land Reclamation — Winning depth from the sea and winning land from it too — trailer suction hopper and cutter suction dredgers, hydraulic fill placed behind rock or geotextile bunds, then the patient business of ground treatment, surcharge and settlement monitoring before anything is built on the new ground.
- Marine Piling & Jetty Construction — Structures standing in the sea on driven steel — tubular piles pitched and driven from barges and jack-ups, berthing and mooring dolphins, linkspans and access trestles, precast deck units stitched with in situ concrete, cathodic protection fitted, and the whole job danced to the tide tables.
- Container Terminals & Port Pavements — The hardest-working pavement in construction — heavy-duty concrete and block paving under container corner-casting loads and rubber-tyred gantries, RTG and RMG rails and beams, reefer gantries and their substations, terminal buildings and gate complexes, all phased around a terminal that wants to keep earning.
Shared methods used in Ports, Harbours & Marine Works
- Corridor Access & Enabling Works
- Survey Control & Ground Investigation
- Bulk Earthworks — Cuttings & Embankments
- Drainage & Utility Corridors
- Dewatering & Groundwater Control
- Piling & Deep Foundations
- Concrete Frame Construction
- Steel Frame Construction
- Testing, Commissioning & Asset Handover
Part of the Transport Infrastructure group.