Mooring Cell Repair

PROJECT TITLE: Mooring Cell Repair

PROJECT LOCATION: Ohio River, Carrollton, Kentucky

CLIENT: Busy River Port

Problem

A sheet pile mooring cell at the confluence of the Ohio and Kentucky rivers had been damaged and required repair. The challenge was developing a repair that will hold up to the daily pounding of multiple 1,500 to 2,000-ton barges.

Solution

We were able to mobilize our crew to arrive within 2 weeks of the service request from the client. Bulldog was called in to perform this work because our method of mooring cell repair has a successful track record of more than 30 years. We are the only company that uses our particular technique, developed over decades of experience. We removed the mooring ring, installed a 3/8” steel plate over the damage in the barge contact area, reattached the mooring ring, then backfilled with concrete. Concrete substantially unifies the repair plate with the cell, creating original or near-original strength of the mooring cell, and ensuring we won’t need to be called back any time soon to repair it again.

Result

At Bulldog, we never treat cell repair as a rubber stamp. Our techniques are meticulously executed, based on thorough structural inspections of damaged cells, existing conditions, and the individual design of each repair. Over years of experience, we developed our unique approach, improving and simplifying our design, based on dozens of actual installations. This successful repair took 4 days from arrival of our crew to return to service as a mooring dock, to serve the client’s important river commerce transport customers.