US engineering firm McCarthy Building Companies has completed construction of a new Ro-Ro terminal at the Port of Beaumont on the Texas Gulf Coast.
The Main Street Terminal 1 project included demolition of a failed dock structure and construction of a new general cargo dock. McCarthy said that, in building a new terminal, the port had a goal of increasing its general cargo handling capacity by more than 15 per cent.
McCarthy began work on the Main Street Terminal in February of 2022 and achieved substantial completion in two years or several months ahead of schedule.
Main Street Terminal 1 is the largest of the 20 projects on the Port of Beaumont's Capital Improvement Program.
The original 100-year-old dock at the Main Street Terminal collapsed in 2012, with the original concrete slab sliding into the water due to pile corrosion. This required demolition of the entire dock, with portions of the dock remaining underwater with near zero visibility.
McCarthy first needed to remove everything directly on and just below the subsurface mudline before installing the new dock in the old dock's footprint, as any underwater obstructions would have hindered pile driving installation.
To establish what exactly was underwater, McCarthy utilised divers as well as an unmanned survey vessel (USV) enabling the divers to manoeuvre safely and efficiently.
Once the area had been surveyed, McCarthy used punches, demolition tools that could be dropped into the water to break up the debris into more manageable pieces before removal. The punches included a pile with a steel tip that could strategically be driven into the old dock to break it up, without creating excess debris under the water.
The new dock is 1,200 feet (365 metres) long and 130 feet (39 metres) wide, with a larger section in the middle measuring 152 feet (46 metres) wide. Its construction consists of concrete piles, cast-in-place concrete caps and beams, pre-cast concrete deck panels, and a concrete topping slab.
McCarthy self-performed all concrete and pile installation, as well as utility installation including water, and sewer.