Terheijden is a small village in the Netherlands with approximately 6.300 inhabitants. Besides the village flows the river the “Mark”, with it origins in the Belgium village of Merksplas (very close to the KWT Belgium office), trough to the Dintel river. Due to it’s stratigic location, there is an old defence work called the “Kleine Schans” (little entrenchment) from 1637, the defence work is surrounded by water, that is in straigh connection with the “Mark” river, in between there is a regional flood defence dyke.

The dutch waterboard “Brabantse Delta” started in 2013 with the preparations of a very important reinforcement of regional flood defence dykes of 15 kilometers. The main contracting combination “Mark – Dintel – Vliet” (KWS & Martens en van Oord) selected KWT as there partner to provide a moving barrier in the flood defence between the Mark and the little Entrenchment for the storming season of 2023.

The moving barrier was conditioned by strict rules, one of the conditions was that under no circumstances the to be desinged barrier should interfere with the reliability of the sheet pile wall. There were also local rules that had to be followd, leading in a design conforming to the EUROCODES (1990 series) with the design report.