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Your First Stop for Piledriving Technology News

Steve Gough, Managing Director for APE International Sales, helps introduce the “Fat Man 220” the largest diesel hammer in the world to a contractor’s party held in Shanghai, China. The D220 (Fat Man) operated flawlessly while all the major Chinese pile contractors cheered. This was a historical moment for Steve Gough and for APE and SEMW. The D220 was sold to China Oil. Steve kissed the Fat Man D220 to give it good luck on its first job. The D220 has a twenty-two metric ton ram and is designed to replace large troublesome hydraulic hammers. The D220’s smaller brother, the D180 is currently driving piles for the new San Francisco Bay Bridge and another D180 just finished the piles for the Pitt River Bridge in Vancouver BC- Two of the largest pile jobs in the world. Thanks to Mr. Wong and Mr. Gong for innovations that have changed the world of pile driving forever.

It sounds like another plot to a science fiction movie, but there is no Godzilla written into this script. There is only the evil Ohio River, large diameter pipe piles, and many many panel walls consisting of 5 flat sheetpiles that need to be vanquished by our hero, King Kong.

APE supplied 2 King Kongs to the Olmsted Dam project that Washington Group and Alberici are joint ventured on in Olmsted, Illinois on the Ohio River. This project is the last part of the Olmsted Lock and Dam replacement. Construction of the lock was completed in a previous project phase several years ago, and is visible in one of the attached pictures.

APE has supplied 2 complete King Kongs that have special designed multi clamp systems that will enable the hammer to drive wall segments that consist of five PS27.5 flat sheetpiles at the same time, as well as several caisson beam and clamp combinations.

Dutra Construction of Northern California knows what it takes to get the job done! Especially when it comes to pulling concrete pile. They also know where to go to get the greatest foundation equipment in the world! APE! Why? As you can see in the pictures, Dutra Construction is one of the leading Marine Contractors in California as they pull fifty year old concrete pile in the Oakland Harbor. “These pile have been in the ground for a long time” says Terry Murray, Piledriving Superintendent for Dutra. “These are not even pre-stressed concrete pile and I didn’t know how they would react to vibrating them out.” Terry consulted with Steve Cress of APE California to come up with a plan of action. “I tried a dry pull on a couple of these pile and all they did was break” Terry said. So with this in mind Dutra attacked the pulling with a plan. The plan was to use the APE 300 vibro and the patented APE concrete clamp hooked up to the APE 630 power unit pushing 630 horses to get the job done. “We chose the 300 vibro because it has a tremendous amount of amplitude and that is what was needed to overcome the deflection of these old concrete piles” says Steve. Pulling concrete pile is an art Terry found out, and then perfected as he got the groove of it. “You can’t just grab the pile and yank it out” he says. “You need to handle it with finesse, easing into the pulling by lowering the engine rpm’s and “waking” the pile up first! After this the pulling is a dream!” Terry Murray was excited as he pulled pile after pile after pile without any complications. One of Terry’s best days in his life was pulling over one-hundred concrete pile in one day! That is an all time record ever recoded in piledriving history! That is what APE is all about, working with contractors like Dutra Construction, with people like Terry Murray to make PILEDRIVING HISTORY!

Today history was made. The largest diesel hammer in the world, the APE/SEMW 220, with a ram weight of 22 metric tons was successfully tested and sold to an off shore oil company.

The APE/SEMW D220 diesel hammer is a full two metric tons larger than Delmag’s old Model 200. In addition, the D220 has superior thermal expansion design over the Delmag D200.

APE/SEMW’s marketing strategy is to build larger diesel hammers as a low cost replacement of the much more expensive hydraulic hammers offered by IHC and Menck.

“Diesel hammers have always been superior to hydraulic hammers when it comes to initial cost, parts replacement, simplicity in operation, and actual driving ability.” “The problem has been a lack of a larger diesel hammer to compete with the larger hydraulic hammers. We have solved this by developing these massive new super larger diesel hammers” says John White, President of APE.

APE’s new monster size diesel hammers are changing the way big bridges are being built in the USA and Canada. On the San Francisco Bay bridge, the largest pile job in the USA, all piles are being driven by the APE D180 rather than a European hydraulic hammer. Add to this the fact that Canada’s largest pile project, the Pitt River Bridge, located in Vancouver, BC is also using an APE D180.

Here comes the largest diesel hammer of all, the APE D220. Its first job is to drive piles for an oil project in China. All three of these projects would have been using hydraulic impact hammers if not for the vision of APE.

APE stocks D180 diesel hammers in its USA rental fleet. See a new D180 on display at ConExpo.