COVER FEATURE
methods or inside finishes were changed until the final
loading and final pile count was calculated, says Huber.
Then a third-party engineering consultant reviewed the
entire project for any possible problems and signed off prior
to construction.
EBS has replaced all the buckets on its fleet of excavators
with geared hydraulic torque motors, customizing the
hydraulics to increase flow rates, “which gives us higher
capacity for quicker installs,” Huber said. “Even if the modification
gives us just three extra revolutions per minute,
that makes a big difference when you’re installing 400 to
500 feet of pile a day. Each time the pile spins 360-degrees,
it’s advancing three inches. At the end of the day, an extra
foot of pile installed every minute has a huge effect on our
production pile numbers. And if you modify the hydraulics
on a small machine to the point where it can now handle a
larger standard torque motor head,” it gives EBS the ability
to install higher-capacity piles with smaller machines in
tight-access areas, he said.
Chance’s digital torque indicators improve safety
For the past few years EBS has used Chance’s digital torque
indicators installed below their torque motors. The units,
powered by single nine-volt batteries and operating at temperatures
ranging from -30°C to 70°C, measure torque as it
is applied to the pile in 100 ft-lb increments, from 500 ft-lb
to 30,000 ft-lb. The indicators have high-visibility digital
readout screens as well as wireless remote Bluetooth connectivity,
which improves safety, says Huber.
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