Sixteen enormous lock gates for the Panama Canal
The requirements to be met by the design of the lock gates for the modernised Panama Canal were extremely stringent: the gates had to be able to withstand enormous water pressures, collisions and earthquakes. What's more, it had to be possible to open and close the gates within five minutes with only a small amount of water being let through, and they needed to be available 99.6% of the time. Due to the enormous dimensions of the lock gates, conventional design methods were not up to the job. Iv-Groep was responsible for designing the gates, the drive mechanism and control system, the integral RAMS analysis and supervision of construction work on the gates.