Temporary pump system for work on the Maeslant storm surge barrier

The ‘Maeslantkering’ is a storm surge barrier that protects the ‘Nieuwe Waterweg’ near Hoek van Holland. This structure consists of two huge doors. The doors are actually two floating pontoons that can be moved into position when empty. Once they are in the right position, the doors are filled with water to create an immovable barrier. When the barrier has to open again, the doors are pumped empty and moved out to holding positions in a dry dock.

Scheduled cleaning had to be carried out recently at the 2 dry docks and Eekels was asked to handle all the pumping operations. The project will run for three weeks and involves two phases. The dry dock to the south on the Rozenburg side will be cleaned during the first phase, followed by the Hoek van Holland side to the north in the second phase.

The water level needs to be lowered as far as possible to allow cleaning in both dry docks. Eekels has delivered two electric Hidrostal submersible pumps, type F06k, for this project. The power supply for the pumps is provided by a 150 kVA generator, which is connected to an external double-walled, environmentally safe fuel tank supplied by our partner RECO. Eekels has also decided to deploy one of its in-house developments, the B-11-300-GG pump set, which has a capacity of 400 m3/h at 10 bars. This addition means that the customer will be able to jet the dry dock clean using high pressure fire hoses and spray lances. The water and sludge will be pumped back into the waterway by an electric Hidrostal sludge pump.