At the Mammoet terminal in Westdorpe in the South of the Netherlands, on June 29th 2023 Dieseko showed the company's biggest vibratory hammer – the GIANT series. The goal of the presentation was to provide insight into the approach that has led to this unique GIANT Vibro Upend design. Our Shanghai ICE team was fortunate to be able to join this event too and filed the following report.

In the launch presentation Mr. Rob Eijkens, Dieseko’ s Technical Manager Offshore, explained some major design prerequisites that led to todays finished product:

• Working safely was the first prerequisite. As expected, the Giant passed the load test according to DNVGL-ST-0378 on 6 April 2023, the category is “Offshore and platform lifting appliances”, the load test was set at a line pull of 2000T

• The market requires vibro-piling equipment to be able to up-end mono-piles.

• The equipment must be modular, so that the majority of parts can be reused for a larger or smaller configuration. Dieseko has succeeded to design a reusable gearbox, clamp, and static frame (up to 3000T line pull) ; just the dynamic frame is project specific so that it meets the requirements of each pile size.

• Elastomers must be loaded only in the vertical plain. As elastomers can be used to modify the spring properties of the Giant for optimal performance in varying soil profiles and pile weights, they are loaded in cartridges that can be easily inserted and extracted to change the performance characteristics of the equipment.

• The Giant 2000 consists of 4 large hydraulic hose packages that transport 4 x3200L flow @ maximum 350bar, so smart engineering for the hose handling is required. Dieseko has chosen to have the hoses lifted up and out of the way, which means the hoses are not moving while upending the hammer, the hoses are always in the same relative position under all circumstances, a significant hose handling advantage.

• Owing to its high self-weight the mono pile deforms during horizontal storage and handling to a more oval shape, when the pile is upended by the Giant the pile shape changes somewhat and finally returns to its spherical shape when fully upended resulting in significant extra pile load introductions. The clamps are able to cope with and release these extra loads by releasing and locking the clamps from the guiding rails after the up-ending, by the so-called hydro-lock system.

  
  

Thank you to Mammoet for the hospitality and to all partners and suppliers who made this event so successful! We look forward to receiving your inquiries for the Giant. Together we found the future!