Novelties in foundation engineering

From September 6 to 10, it is Matexpo in Kortrijk. Traditionally, Olivier presents some novelties in the field of foundations. Olivier is a manufacturer and developer of tools for making soil displacement piles and sells these techniques to foundation companies worldwide.

A new patented system was developed for making smooth piles with no lost drill point and which does not involve grout injection in hard sand layers. Comparative tests with existing systems have since shown that the new system works much faster and more efficiently, has no problem with hard sand layers and minimizes the ecological footprint.

For small pile diameters of, say, 360 mm, larger reinforcement baskets can be placed through the drill pipe. This is because a feed tube of 324 mm is used over the entire length. One of the advantages with large pile diameters, for example of 660 mm, is that the drill head is much shorter compared to traditional drill heads and thus causes much less friction. This ensures that less drilling torque is required and results in a serious reduction in fuel consumption.

In addition, a new automatic coupling is proposed to be mounted under the drill motor. This is to speed up the coupling of pipes to the machine and make it safer. This way, there is no need for anyone to go up to lock the coupling at high altitude.

This new coupler can also be used for a closed concrete system where one wants to place a full reinforcement cage through the drill pipe. After the drill pipe is inserted into the ground, it can be disconnected, a rebar inserted into the drill pipe and reconnected in seconds.

The automatic clutch can transmit the maximum drilling torque in clockwise and counterclockwise directions and is compatible with all existing Olivier clutches. In addition to the automatic clutch, a new version of the Olivier clutch is also presented in which some of the disadvantages of the classic clutch have been eliminated. It can also be used for large pipe diameters up to 914 mm.

Visit Olivier at Matexpo in hall 3, booth 32

For more information, please visit www.olivier.inc