Sandvik’s new RT300 type uniface design bench drilling bits are helping to speed up work on Turkey’s Kavsak Bendi hydro plant.
The main contractor for the 180MW construction and hydromechanical works located on the Upper Seyhan Riverin southern Turkey, AGE Construction was appointed in 2008 and claims its Sandvik equipment is making the build much more efficient.
The main elements of the job are an RCC dam, and a tunnel 2,263 m in length and with a 9 m inner diameter. There are also two diversion tunnels, 531m and 330m long, with an inner diameter of 7.9m. One of the project’s biggest challenges is the ground, which consists mainly of shale, limestone and sandstone.
AGE has added two Sandvik DX 700 crawler-mounted drilling rigs to its already extensive Sandvik fleet, and is using them for the drilling and blasting work at the quarry that is supplying fill.
AGE’s project manager Sezai Azizoglu says that the two rigs are particularly effective at working on the difficult terrain. “We are relying on the rigs to keep the production cycle moving,” he says. “Sandvik equipment dominates our fleet, and we are using the rigs with complete confidence.”
Erdinc Cetin, surface drilling and tunnelling manager of Sandvik Mining and Construction Turkey, commented that monitoring the progress at Kavsak Bendi, in a situation where a high volume of the Sandvik RT300 bits are being used, has revealed that the combination of hard-materials technology with more effective cutting structures, greater rigidity and good flushing capacity is resulting in greater fuel efficiency for the drill rigs.
“We can say that the rigs are using about half the fuel that would be consumed if we were using the down-the-hole drilling method, despite the hardness of the ground,” he said.
