South Quay of Ulsan New Port Breakwater

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Artistic structure in the seaThe Ulsan New Port South Breakwater and the Beomwolgap Breakwater are located about two kilometers off the coast of Onsan, Ulju-gun, in Ulsan Metropolitan City. Sticking to their duty of absorbing shocks from waves and heaving seas, the two breakwaters boast of exceptional beauty of artistic structures in the sea.Functional yet beautifulThe Ulsan New Port was built under the local government’s plan to develop the city into a logistics hub and a new industrial zone of the southeast industrial belt in Korea. The public pier provides high quality services. The South Breakwater built by Hyundai E&C is one of key counter facilities of the Ulsan New Port. The area consists of the 1,000-meter South Breakwater located in parallel with the coastline and the 610-meter Beomwolgap Breakwater located at the right angle of the land to face the eastern end of the South Breakwater.Hyundai E&C put tireless efforts to construct functional and beautiful breakwaters from the design stage. The “art-like” curved precast concrete structure was constructed under the design concept of “eco-friendly breakwaters with water-friendly facilities.”One of the most popular tourist attractions are lighthouses designed to lean about 15 degrees to the front side built on aesthetic elements. Tourists call them the “leaning lighthouses of Pisa” or the “twin lighthouses.” The white lighthouse located at the end of the breakwater on shore faces the red one located at the end of the long breakwater off shore. The 25-meter lighthouses are 300 meters away from each other, leaning toward the other one. Their presence is wonderfully in harmony with the blue sea. Observation decks are five meters and 10 meters high, respectively, and spiral stairs lead to the top.Use of Korea’s largest slit caissonsHarbor construction is considered technically difficult due to issues including the soft ground. One of the biggest problems with the project is also to remove about five to 10 meter deep mud-like layer. Hyundai E&C got rid of the soft ground through dredging and replacement, and paved the foundation riprap layer. An 8,000-ton self-propelling hopper dredger of Jan De Nul, a global leading dredging company, was mobilized to remove marine clayey soil from the soft ground, and it was replaced with seabed sand collected in the exclusive economic zone. The entire process takes about 12 months in general, while Hyundai E&C completed it only in four months by making full use of the state-of-the-art, large-scale equipment.In addition, 5,000-ton slit caissons were used for the project, the largest of its kind in the domestic industry at that time. Large-sized slit caissons were built through the around-the-clock concrete placement using gantry towers and slip forms, and launched based on the semi-submersible sliding construction method (new technology no. 444) using CCVs (Caisson Carrier Vehicles) and DCLs (Draft Control Launchers). This construction method, developed by extensive construction experience and innovative ideas of Hyundai E&C, aims to fabricate, move and install caissons weighing 5,000 tons or above in a seamless way. This technology made quality and construction management easier and enabled the builder to cut back on the construction period and costs by proceeding the construction by stage around the clock, regardless of the limited space for fabrication.Exemplary harbor construction projectHyundai E&C provided medical checkups to all the workers on a regular basis in a bid to prevent safety accidents from taking place. Divers working in 25 to 30 meters of water were required to use a decompression device, or a chamber, after diving for a certain period of time to prevent decompression sickness. Such efforts were well received as a good example for other harbor construction sites.

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