National Pile Croppers (NPC) has always been proud of the continuous research and development that goes in to making its hydraulic pile croppers more efficient, safer, customer focused and productive. The latest development of this non-stop development program is the new version of the company’s Quad XXL cropper, which is proving to be an essential tool in England’s planned high-speed railway, High Speed 2 (HS2).
As a worldwide supplier of hydraulic pile croppers, NPC’s array has been in demand on large multi-site infrastructure projects for some time. The croppers have now found a particular niche on HS2 where a variety of contractors and civil engineering companies have used the U.K. manufactured and supported croppers to great success. However, as with any NPC product, there is constant vigilance of where refinements can be made, with the needs of HS2 leading to the revision of members of the NPC armoury.
The new Quad XXL is a true cropping behemoth being designed and developed to deal with piles of between 900 and 1,200 millimetres in size.
Bigger, better and more powerful
With a project as big and demanding as HS2, there has arisen a requirement for even larger, more powerful pile croppers.
“As we always work closely with our customers to ensure that they are getting the very best in hydraulic pile cropping, we soon identified a need for an even larger cropper,” said NPC director Lee Aston. This has led directly to the development of the new Quad XXL.
“We have a well-proven and existing range of Quad croppers that cover virtually any requirement, with our Quad XL 1000 cropper being designed to be used for the reduction of augured (round) piles up to 1,050 millimetres (mm) in diameter. As with the entire Quad range, it uses four powerful and fully synchronized rams with specially designed blades to give a superb pile cut. The cropper will also hold the cut pile section safely for removal to a designated safe area.
Best for piles with ‘de-bonded’ reinforcement bars, it has proved to be the ideal solution when reducing contiguous and secant piled walls with spacing as close as 150 mm. However, on some parts of HS2, the Quad XL, although effective, needed to be super-sized to make it even more productive,” Aston said.
A beast of a machine
The new Quad XXL is a true cropping behemoth being designed and developed to deal with piles of between 900 and 1,200 millimetres in size. Weighing in at a mighty 3,675 kilograms, it is best used on an excavator of at least 31 tonnes in weight.
“Although big, the new Quad XXL is still easy to use, and our experienced support staff are at hand from the initial order to the installation on site to make sure that customers get what they pay for. Operation is still simple, with the cropper being lowered to the ideal height, with the jaws then being closed until pile sections ‘pop’ free. The broken pile section then can be easily removed for recycling to a dumper or a specified area,” Aston said.
“The feedback we’ve received has been beyond our expectations. Our customers seem to want more and more of the Quad XXL as the targets and deadlines shorten on HS2. Despite its size and power, the new Quad XXL is as efficient as the other members of the Quad range, delivering an effective solution wherever it has been used.”
The new Quad XXL is now available for hire or purchase throughout the U.K., and will be introduced globally in the coming months. 
Photos: National Pile Croppers