PILE GRIPPER ARM INSTALLATION

Manufactured over 400 metres of stainless steel hydraulic pipework.

All pipework was butt welded, flushed and tested to 1.5 times working pressure.

650 tonne pile gripper arms support 6 metre diametre piles.

Each arm weighs 90 tonnes and has 3 main cylinders.

IMH successfully completed a significant turnkey project for Houlder Ltd, installing pile gripper arms onto the vessel, MPI Discovery. The project was an ambitious one, replacing and upgrading previous smaller gripper arms, to meet the increasingly higher technological demands of the fast-expanding offshore wind market.

IMH manufactured over 400 metres of stainless steel hydraulic pipework and installed, flushed, pressure tested and commissioned the system. The company assisted in the design of the pipe routing, and also supported the mechanical build phase, with IMH Engineers stroking the hydraulic cylinders and  supplying IMH’s fleet of hydraulic rigs.

The project was conducted in two stages: all deck pipework was installed and blanked off during stage one; the installation of the pipework to the remotely located gripper arms and the final hook up was completed in stage two.

At this point a full system flush and test was undertaken and subsequently commissioned.

“Houlder contracted IMH to provide a full turnkey solution to the hydraulic installation for the gripper arm equipment we recently installed onto the MPI Discovery vessel. We worked closely with IMH during the two phases of the project, to ensure that the hydraulic system was installed to a strict specification, in a challenging environment. IMH were both flexible and responsive to changing requirements and contributed significantly to the overall success of the project.”

– Andy Lovell, Project Manager – Marine Equipment Division, Houlder Ltd