Equipment: the new Hydrofraise® HF8c on its way to Singapore!

In July 2021, an internal consortium of Soletanche Bachy International, Bachy Soletanche Singapour and Bessac won the CR116 contract with our partner Gammon. The project involves the delivery of the station, located in the heart of the densely populated Ang Mo Kio district, as well as its 6 entrances, 2 underpasses built using the pipe jacking technique (by microtunneling), its cut-and-cover and 2 tunnels built using a 7 m diameter TBM.

For this major project, our group has mobilized state-of-the-art equipment: the new model of Hydrofraise®, the HF8c will shortly be used for the construction of the diaphragm wall in thicknesses of 1000m and 1200mm at a maximum depth of around 60m, to create the main enclosure and entrances to the future Ang Mo Kio metro station.

Find out more about the project

Capable of reaching depths of up to 90m, while keeping its footprint small, the HF8c is particularly well-suited to the constraints of the CR116 site, located in the heart of Singapore in a very dense urban environment. And thanks to its grippers, it has sufficient thrust to drill the very hard ground typical of Singapore (such as the granite of Bukit Timah).

The HF8c undergoes an extensive procedure before reaching its destination:

1. Dismantling: the HF8c comprises no fewer than 4,400 unique parts, totalling over 16,000 pieces! Even if not all the parts are dismantled, the task is highly complex!
2. Packing: the parts are numbered and placed in crates for transport. Some thirty sub-components are required in all! All in all, dismantling and packing take around 2 weeks.
3. Transport: all the crates are transported by truck to the port of Antwerp in Belgium, where they are loaded onto a ship. She will spend almost a month at sea!

The HF8c left Montereau on July 18 and is due to arrive in Singapore early September. Our teams will thus have achieved the feat of taking a machine weighing over 180 tonnes across the planet in just 1? months!

After its arrival in Singapore, the HF8c will only need a week or so of assembly and a few weeks of adjustments and tests in real-life conditions before it is operational. Just in time for the ramp-up of the diaphragm wall activity in September, when 2 Hydrofraises® with grippers will be mobilized (the HF8c and the HC05).

In the future, after this initial launch, only a few days will be needed between delivery to the site in parts and production start-up.

This newcomer to the Hydrofraises family was made possible by the mobilization of several Soletanche Bachy teams:

• DIFM for design, manufacturing, commissioning and project management.
• The Eurofrance Materials Department (SME): for assembly and assistance with testing at Montereau.
• The Purchasing-Logistics-Export department of the Technical Division, for packing and shipping the new machine.
• Last but not least, the Bachy Soletanche Singapore teams for the expression of needs in an increasingly competitive market.