Design and Construction of the Floating Concrete Pier in Golden Harbor, Incheon

There are two 200 m long floating piers for berthing car ferries in the Golden Harbor, Incheon, South Korea. Each floating pier has almost the same dimensions, but one of these piers is made of steel whereas the other pier is made of concrete. This paper focuses on the design and construction of the floating concrete pier. In the design of the floating steel pier, the 198 m long pier has two inner moorings and comprises three separated steel modules (with each module length L = 66 m). In contrast, the floating concrete pier composed of a single structure (of length L = 200 m) without inner mooring dolphins. This concrete pier design not only maximizes the use of the top-side space but it also minimizes the number of mooring dolphins. The construction method involves fabricating concrete segments on land and assembling them as modules on the seawater. This modular construction method was adopted instead of the conventional method of using a big floating dock because it increases the construction efficiency and enhances the concrete quality of the modules. More detail considerations of this design and construction are explained in this paper.