Operation
The Hartel Barrier is the most important
and impressive element in the Europort
Barrier. The movable barrier consists of
large elliptical gates suspended between
oval towers. The water is held back by
lowering the gates.
A special feature of the barrier is the
fact that the water can cascade over the
barrier. This means that the gates are
located in an area of high and variable
current. A difficult question for the
designers was to achieve calm hydrodynamic
behaviour of the gates (in order to keep
vibration, turbulence and oscillating
currents within acceptable limits).