World record for raiseboring - Atlas Copco

The fleet on land: Some of the Atlas Copco ROC D7crawlers drilling at the Third Lock Segment at thePacific end of the Panama Canal.Hugo Arce, Atlas Copco’s BusinessDevelopment Manager for Central Americaand the Caribbean, says: “Maintaining qualitytooling, parts, and experienced techniciansare all very important for a contractorlike Jan De Nul and a project with the sizeand scope of the Panama Canal expansion.“There are fifteen operators on the site,and all of them have been trained by AtlasCopco. They are very happy with the HQSMKI2 system and have been very quick tolearn it and apply it in their everyday work.”Versteele adds: “The just-in-time supportand service provided by Atlas Copcois extremely important for us on this typeof job. We are very happy with the productivity.Although we are seeing variable lifeon the bits as there are so many variationsin the basalt formation.“Overall, I think we’re getting very goodperformance. The COP 1840 hammer isstrong and fast and the rigs’ feed alignmentcontrol system is a perfect tool to assist inthe shaping and designing of the bench.”The largest preferred size of the fragmentedrock is 30 cm. Drill and blast managerJorge Perez Blanco says he has noproblem keeping to that fragmentationwith the 89 mm bits, but would like toexperiment with larger diameter holes andvariations in the drill pattern.The drilling operations got under way inJune 2010 and are expected to take 30months to complete whereas the entireexpansion project is on schedule to becompleted by 2014.Hugo Arce of Atlas Copco: “The operatorshave been very quick to learn and apply ourMK12 hole quality system.”The Panama Canal is around 80 km long and runsacross the center of Panama linking the Pacific andAtlantic oceans.It was built by the American government between1904 and 1914 and is today owned by Panama andmanaged by the Panama Canal Authority (ACP).Locks at the Pacific and Atlantic ends eitherlower vessels to sea level or raise them up to thelevel of the canal.At present, the canal can only accommodateships of less than 294 m long and 32 m wide butPREPARING FOR THE BIG SHIPSwhen the new locks have been built, container vesselsup to 366 m long, 49 m wide and with a draft of15 m will be able to pass through.The expansion scheme is a huge undertaking.A workforce of more than 1 000 people are currentlyemployed at the site and this is expected toincrease to about 7 000.In addition to the six Atlas Copco ROC D7 drill rigs,a wide variety of other Atlas Copco equipment is beingused at the site including compressors, breakersand concrete vibrating and compacting equipment.16 MINING & CONSTRUCTION – 1 / 2011