Environmental Protection Solutions

Environmental Protection

Steel sheet piles can play an active role in protecting and preserving the environment: recycling, re-use, flood protection systems, storm protection systems, beach erosion protection,...

Its production process in facilities that fulfill all the stringent European environmental and health & safety regulations and standards, as well as its reuse and recycling capability, result in a quite low impact on the environment and on human activities compared to other materials.

Although noise and vibrations may be higher during installation (there are some means to reduce, or even to eliminate this nuisance), a sheet pile structure is erected almost always much faster, and at the end leads to less disturbance to the neighbourhood, which is a key selection criteria in urban areas.

Waste disposal

Steel sheet piles are highly valued for the containment of waste or polluted material. They can be installed as an impervious wall preventing the migration of pollutants in soil.

Regarding the confinement of waste, steel sheet piles are generally installed as vertical walls. Its watertightness can be improved either by applying a sealing product in the interlocks or whenever possible, by welding the interlocks after installation. The piles are highly resistant to the potentially aggressive environment present in waste disposals.

Steel sheet piles can also be used to create a new landfill (see case study “Redevelopment of a landfill - Horn“) or to rehabilitate an existing landfill (see case study “Tar waste disposal - Rostock“).

Soil decontamination

Soil decontamination projects are quite complex. One method consists in containing the soil within an impervious steel sheet pile wall that prevents the migration of pollutants present in the soil.

Usually a decontamination procedure is made of a few execution phases:
 

• the area to be decontaminated is surrounded with an impervious sheet pile wall,
• the contaminated soil is excavated till the non-contaminated layer is reached,
• the contaminated soil is transferred to a plant for treatment, or is treated on site,
• after treatment, the soil returns to the site,
• the sheet pile wall can be removed and re-used.

The whole area can be treated in a single phase, or can be subdivided into several smaller cells that will be treated one after the other. In the latter option, the same steel sheet piles can thus be reused one or more times on the same site.

No waste remains on site once the steel sheet piles have been removed.

Noise barriers

Steel sheet pile walls have been used in Europe for decades as sound barriers along roads and motorways. They often combine two functions: retaining wall and noise barrier, with the advantage that it requires a very small footprint along the roads.

The efficiency of the noise barrier can be improved by installing the sheet piles with a small batter angle.

Steel sheet piles reflect the sound waves, but due to their geometry, the result of the reflections is quite different compared to a pure smooth flat surface. In some cases, additional panels have been fixed on the sheets to absorb part of the sound.

In case steel sheet piles act only as a sound barrier, then some of the piles can be shorter than the others, and are designed in a similar way to a combined wall system.

Owners do also appreciate the corroded surface of steel sheet piles for its anti-graffiti properties, but quite often architects prefer a coating for aesthetic reasons.