Princess Beatrix lock

The Princess Beatrix lock is the largest monumental inland navigation lock in the Netherlands and is located in the Lekkanaal near Nieuwegein. This canal is the principal direct waterway link between the ports of Rotterdam and Amsterdam. As increasingly larger ships used the Lekkanaal, the current lock threatened to become a bottleneck.

The 2 existing chambers were therefore extended with a third lock chamber, which will be fitted on the east side. The outer ports of the lock and the Lekkanaal were also widened and the road infrastructure around the lock was adapted where necessary.

A third lock chamber

The new chamber is longer (270m), wider (25m) and deeper (for ships with a draught of up to 4m) than the existing one and is designed to be inconspicuous, like a ‘cut’ through the landscape. By opting for double roller shutters, there was no need to build new lifting towers, meaning the existing lock can retain its monumental character.

Thanks to our many years of experience and expertise, SBE’s role within the project was to design the lock gates. The SBE design team, together with LievenseCSO, advised the client in the consideration of different types of lock gates and possible lock configurations. Subsequently, SBE took on the design of the lock gates, from the tendering phase up to and including the construction design. The result is a beautiful lock that meets the needs of the future.

Existing lock chambers

For the existing lanes 1 & 2, SBE has determined also the remaining lifetime of the existing steel lock gates of these lanes