Happy birthday! The Hydrofraise® celebrates its 50th anniversary

Tools, motors, new models: since its first project at the Gare de Lyon in Paris in 1973, Soletanche Bachy has continued to develop the Hydrofraise® to meet our customers’ needs in terms of environment, productivity and performance. Today, Soletanche Bachy holds more than 20 active patents on the Hydrofraise®.

• 2016 – Grippers: this innovative, patented piece of equipment makes it possible to drill diaphragm walls in extremely hard rock by generating thrust from the sidewalls of the panel to be excavated.
• 2017 – The electric power pack: used for the first time on the Thames Tideway site (UK), this equipment reduces greenhouse gas emissions (5000 liters of fuel saved per week), vibrations and noise.
• 2017 – The remote power pack: deployed for the first time on the City Rail Link project in Auckland (New Zealand), this innovation makes it possible to work in very tight spaces, particularly in urban environments.
• 2017 – The Hydrofraise® diaphragm wall drilling simulator: this tool enables operators to be trained to drive the machine by reproducing its controls and behaviors, situations encountered on our worksites, drilling fluid management, etc.
• 2021 – Connection with Zetta-Lyze, our Big Data platform: thanks to this innovation, we are able to collect data via the supervision application onboard the Hydrofraise®, structure the data, monitor site progress in real time on an interactive map, visualize “as-built” drilling data and automatically produce excavation, deviation and verticality reports.
• 2022 – The control interface: the Hydrofraise® HF8 used on the NSC105 project in Singapore uses a completely redesigned control interface, which combines the control panel and supervision on a single touch screen to improve ergonomics.

Soletanche Bachy’s range of Hydrofraises® now comprises 3 models, all of which can be fitted with the gripper module and an electric power pack:

• HC05: Compact and containerizable, it is particularly well-suited to tight worksites and spaces with limited headroom. Despite its smaller size, its drilling performance is comparable to that of larger Hydrofraises®. It can be containerized and dismantled in less than 72 hours.
• HF8: Specially developed for excavation in very hard ground, it is the Hydrofraise® with the largest dimensions (21m high and up to 3.60m wide).
• HF6: Developed in 2022-2023, this is the latest addition to the family! Capable of reaching depths of 90m with a reduced footprint, the Hydrofraise® HF6 meets the requirements of today’s urban worksites.

The Hydrofraise® has transformed the way in which diaphragm walls and barrettes are made. It has enabled us to push back the limits of depth and regularly broke records!

• Deepest diaphragm wall at 125m on Mud Mountain Dam (USA)
• The 126-meter-deep barrettes on the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.
• Deepest CWS joints at 74m on the Vert-de-Maisons station of the Grand Paris Express (France)
• Diaphragm walls in extremely hard granite (UCS>200 MPa) using the HF8 with grippers equipped with roller bits on the NSC105 site in Singapore.