The first four of the newly designed and constructed gates for the Panama Canal Project have arrived in Panama. The new gates, the largest in the world, each weigh an average of 3,100 tons, and are being shipped four at a time from Italy.
The new locks of the expanded Panama Canal will have a total of 16 rolling gates (eight each for the Atlantic and Pacific locks complexes). Unlike the current Canal, which uses miter gates that swing open across half the lock, the expanded Canal will have rolling gates that move across the entire lock lane.
The design of the new locks and rolling gates is being led by MWH along with joint venture partners Iv-Group of the Netherlands and Tetra Tech of California. The lock heads that house the lock gates and the lock chamber walls are designed with drains that reduce the static and dynamic loads on the walls, reducing their section size and reinforcement, while achieving the required performance goals related to deflection and durability. Design of the lock heads and lock gates required use of super-computers to model their dynamic interaction under large seismic loads. With the optimized gate design, the gates now have the potential to operate faster than specified.
Learn more about the role MWH is playing on this important project.
