Pilot guided auger drilling application and removal

There are only a few parties in the Netherlands that specialize in pilot driven auger drilling under roads and railroads. Holland Drilling is one of them and immediately the most versatile with modern, compact and environmentally friendly drilling rigs. For project HOV in 't Gooi, the Cuijk-based company not only realized two fauna tunnels under the railroad with this drilling technique, but also removed an existing casing pipe. 

"In the tender, we were asked by BAM Infra Nederland to quote for the design and execution of two pilot-driven auger drilling operations," begins Ronald van Krieken, director of Holland Drilling. "Using this technique, we installed two GRP pipes at a depth of 2.5 meters, with a diameter of 530 millimeters and a length of 21 meters each. Holland Drilling has performed many similar projects, this project is not a big challenge in that respect but that doesn't make it any less important. One of the reasons we were awarded the contract is that we use very compact installations. Especially along the railroad tracks, this is a precious commodity. The more compact the equipment on site, the cheaper and the smaller the impact on the entire project and the environment."

Flexibility

Holland Drilling values people and the environment. "We mainly work with compact and clean machines with stage V engines or even fully electrically driven," Van Krieken explains. "Our machines are specially custom-built at the factory and in some cases modified here and there after delivery. Whereas in the past we spent about three days setting up the drilling rigs, today we are 'up and running' after only half a day of construction. So we can work very efficiently and we're off again quickly. This allows us to respond very flexibly to our clients' schedules with minimal inconvenience to the surrounding area and the environment. We also proved this with the HOV bus lane in 't Gooi. For example, we drilled a boring on Ascension Day, because this fitted in better with BAM's schedule. Flexibility is in our blood, just like good workmanship. We are economical with our equipment and proud of our people."

Holland Drilling's auger drilling employees are all ProRail certified. "We can perform drilling in diameters ranging from 150 millimeters to as much as 1.70 meters," says Van Krieken. "In addition, we have developed a unique technique to remove existing bores in close cooperation with ProRail. That also came in handy on this project. In the built-up area of Hilversum, a casing pipe had to be removed in order to construct a soilmix wall at this location. Using tooling developed in-house, we can cut through an existing bore (between from 110 to 500 millimeters in diameter) in the middle based on water pressure in order to easily remove it on two sides from ground level, without the track setting. And so we try to completely unburden our clients in the field of trenchless techniques."