ABSTRACT
MoSE is an integrated plan of interventions implemented across the entire lagoon area to safeguard Venice and its lagoon from high tides. The barrier system consists of four rows of fold-away steel gates constructed at the lagoon inlets. The gates are steel, oscillating, buoyancy flap gates that are raised from the sea floor to prevent water from entering the Venice lagoon when high tide is forecast. When inactive, the floodgates are folded and embodied in concrete caissons buried at the bottom of the inlet channels, so that they are completely invisible.
The geotechnical design of the barrier posed countless challenges, the most difficult being those related to the prediction of the caisson settlements that lie on settlement reducing piles.
In this chapter, special attention is paid to the analysis of differential settlements, regarded as the most crucial aspect in geotechnical design due to the presence of large rubber joints. The joints must provide waterproof contact between adjacent caissons, thus guaranteeing access to the service tunnels for the maintenance of the electromechanical equipment operating the mobile gates.
