New Dry Dock for the American Ship Building Company

Abstract

The design and construction of the American Ship Building Company's new drydock at Lorain, Ohio, is described. The reinforced concrete drydock is a structure with the nominal dimensions of 925 ft x 125 ft x 30 ft. Weep holes and a crushed stone subbase combine to relieve the pressure relief for the hydrostatic uplift on the floor slab. Water seepage into the dock was minimized by the use of steel sheet piling as a cut-off wall. Composite action of the concrete walls and the sheet piling was developed by the use of headed shear connectors. Most of the drydock structure and the adjacent crane girders are supported on steel bearing piling.