The potential benefits of standardisation of the design of bed protections at waiting places at ship locks in the Netherlands

In the near future, Rijkswaterstaat has the task to replace or renovate many ship locks. With the long-term project, MultiWaterWerk, Rijkswaterstaat aims to standardise components of these ship locks. This thesis contributes to the project by researching the potential benefits of standardisation of the bed protection design at waiting places at ship locks in the Netherlands. Only waiting places for inland vessels with the most commonly used bed materials are analysed. Similar waiting places are grouped together with a classification analysis, based on three parameters: bed material of upper layer, berth type, i.e. quay wall or piles, and expected maximum near-bed flow velocity. The variation in these three parameters and the measured erosion of the bed were then compared between and within the resulting classes. Furthermore, the waiting places are split up into different sizes by pre-defined CEMT-classes. Waiting places in CEMT-class II and VI waterways are more similar in design and erosion, so a potential for standardisation exists there. CEMT-class V is further analysed per corridor, because the variation between all waiting places is too high. Among those corridors, only the Nederrijn-Lek shows potential. In the Meuse and Twente channels, the erosion varies too much; other corridors contain too little waiting places for potential benefits to outweigh the effort for standardisation. It is recommended to standardise the design assumptions concerning ship dimensions and propeller characteristics. A potential standard design vessel per corridor or CEMT-class should lead to a more reliable estimation of the expected scour at the waiting places. Furthermore, estimations for new bed protections at waiting places on lifetime, building duration, cost, and required maintenance will be more reliable because there will be more similar waiting places.Civil Engineerin