Nippon Steel’s World Longest Sheet Pile Adopted to South Korean Bridge

Nippon Steel announced on Wednesday the firm’s straight web-type sheet pile was adopted to the bridge protection facilities from vessel collision of the Second Connecting Bridge of the Inchon International Airport (JV of the construction department of Samsung C&T Corporation, Korea). The straight web-type sheet pile is the world longest, 38 meters. The sheet pile was adopted for the first time.

Nippon Steel delivered the sheet pile at about 16,000 tonnes for October 2007-March 2009. The sheet pile can reduce total weight by 5-10% since the sheet pile is able to be constructed without welding. The firm will expand the sales at overseas and aim the sales weight at 10,000 tonnes per year.

This large-scale project is the construction of the second connecting bridge between Inchon International Airport and Songdo special free economic zone. Extending 21.38 km in total length (the longest in Korea and the seventh in the world), including the access road, the bridge is 12.34 km long in its sea-crossing secton alone and, four years and four months after the start of construction in June 2005, was put into service on Monday, 19 of October.

The sheet piles are used for protection of the foundations of the piers around hits Bridge against ship impact. Interlock sections’ tensile strength of the sheet pile is maximum 5,880 kn/m. The use of this sheet pile makes possible the increased diameters of the cell, thus permitting the shortened depth of embedment into the seabed and reduced weight of steels used.

At, present, pile thickness is available in two types, 9.5 mm and 12.7 mm. The firm plans to produce it with 11-12.7 mm thick.

The firm started the sales of straight web-type sheet pile in 1955, and had been sold it at 30 projects in Japan, and in Taiwan or South Korea and is expected to be adopted in Papua New Guinea.