Foundation piles stretching to the horizon

Foundation piles that stretch to the horizon; that’s how big the pile plant at concrete firm Voorbij in Amsterdam’s Westelijk Haven is. Bright yellow containers dart around the brand new complex on monorails, like a sort of fairground attraction, and deposit wet concrete in giant flexible moulds.

Not that the old factory was past it. Director Carlo van Klarenbosch denies that this was why Voorbij relocated to its new Amerikahaven site. Voorbij’s facility on Zeeburg island at the far end of Amsterdam harbour was modern and had years of life left.

‘But the City of Amsterdam wanted to build housing there, so we had to find somewhere else. And we took the opportunity to make something splendid’, Van Klarenbosch proudly explains. ‘State of the art.’ The most advanced reinforcement machine in Europe, for example. It can bend reinforcement rods in two directions, without having to tilt the mesh first. A fully automated spot welder joins the rods together. Once properly adjusted, it will also produce the reinforcement for Zwijndrecht-based Schokbeton, one of many Voorbij fellow subsidiaries in the TBI group. But that is for the future.

Van Klarenbosch gives an enthusiastic guided tour of the 13-hectare site where building is in full swing. Voorbij itself has produced the concrete trusses that span the spaces in that factory, which anywhere else would have been made of steel. ‘At the end of the day you have to demonstrate what you are good at, which might not always be the cheapest solution.’ The entire area is served by overhead travelling cranes, which the director says reduce the risk of collisions with crossing ground-level traffic.

The new location has already attracted a new customer: the Japanese equipment manufacturer Hitachi, which occupies the neighbouring plot in Westpoort. They need Voorbij’s ballast blocks for its cranes. Some storage bunkers on the site have been filled with lead slag for the purpose. When added to Voorbij’s concrete, the slag produces an extremely heavy mixture that can steady even the most enormous of cranes.

Building up the tension like a master, Van Klarenbosch reaches the climax: the 240-metre plant where Voorbij manufactures foundation piles in moulds that are so long they seem to extend beyond the horizon. Fixed moulds are available for standard formats, but some flexible moulds have also been made for piles of size 50 square. The moulds are filled with concrete poured from containers running through the plant on monorails.

‘Everything for the traditional foundation market, where the piles are hammered into the ground with much violence, noise and vibration,’ Van Klarenbosch admits. Shortly before that he explained the partnership with Bresser van ‘t Wout and Stump. He happens to believe that there is an irreversible trend towards vibration-free and low-noise foundation techniques. The Netherlands is lagging behind the neighbouring countries somewhat in this area.

Despite this conviction, he has no intention of dropping the more traditional foundation work immediately. Voorbij will also be happy to serve this market from the new Amsterdam harbour site. Last week the first shipload of piles left the inlet for England. It was loaded at the Voorbij quay, with the Voorbij crane. As he said.

Source: Cobouw 14-04-2004