Taking the pressure off on Ground Investigations

The extremely dry weather in Scotland this summer has been welcome amongst our drill crews, to say the least. The heat can bring its own challenges but generally things are just that bit easier during the summer months.

We are fast approaching the autumn and winter months, however, when conditions become wetter and ground conditions particularly soft.

One of the challenges on a Ground Investigation project can be in figuring out how to get all the drilling equipment across site. There’s the rig itself, plus the compressor, rods, drillbits, casing, core boxes, core barrel…and not forgetting the drill crews.

Moving the crew / equipment around site and setting up at each position can take time, especially on larger sites. Add soft, boggy conditions into the equation and it becomes a whole new challenge.

At Hydracrat, our HYCAT rotary drilling rigs were built with these conditions in mind. They offer practical solutions to many of the most common headaches and frustrations.

1) Low Ground Pressure -: Each rotary drilling rig is fitted with soft, wide tracks. These tracks help to reduce the ground pressure, enhancing the prospects of being able to track across soft, boggy or uneven terrain compared to standard tracked rigs.

2) Significant additional storage space -: Each rotary rig offers a high volume of onboard storage space for our regular drilling equipment, such as 6 metre drill rods, drill bits, core barrels, core boxes. This additional storage helps to reduce the number of return trips for equipment between borehole positions and the need to mobilise additional support vehicles is reduced.

3) Onboard compressor -: Most rotary drilling rigs typically utilise an air compressor which is separate to the drilling rig and towed around site. Where site conditions are soft, compressors would usually need to be transported separately using additional support vehicle.

Each of Hydracrat’s HYCAT drilling rigs, however, have a high-pressure compressor housed onboard, which helps to reduce moving and set up times further and enables drill crews to maximise productivity.

So as we move towards the winter months (and the more challenging conditions that the season invariably brings), Hydracrat are ready to offer our pragmatic approach and unique low ground pressure drill plant to help meet our client’s objectives on Ground Investigation projects.

To learn more about the services Hydracrat offers for Ground Investigations across Scotland, click here.

To learn more about Hydracrat’s drilling fleet solutions, click here.