Coda Octopus Reports Successful Deployment of the Echoscope on a Breakwater Construction Project
Coda Octopus reports Van Oord successfully executed the impressive ground improvement project for client Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) using the Coda Octopus real time 3D sonar, Echoscope®.
Project Details
The project, which started in 2014, involved the reclamation of 65 million cubic metres of sand and extensive soil improvement. The reclamation area of 1,320 hectares is intended for one of the largest oil refining plants in the Middle East.
This project comprises land reclamation for the construction of a port and the first phase of a LNG import facility. Part of the scope is the construction of revetments and breakwaters which contains some 24,000 CORE-LOC armour units of 1m³.
The CORE-LOC™ armour unit was developed and patented in the mid-1990s by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory. It is now widely considered for breakwater projects requiring reliable and cost-effective protection. This armour unit is ideally suited to sites exposed to moderate waves.
The excavator used for placing the CORE-LOC armour units is equipped with a Coda Octopus Echoscope® 3D imaging sonar providing the operator with real time guidance information during placement below the waterline ensuring the units are placed within the applicable tolerances and according to the rules that need to be adhered to in order to achieve correct interlocking between the separate units.
By using a hydraulic excavator in combination with an Echoscope® and skilled operators Van Oord realized significant productivity gains and was able to achieve record production rates (“lay rates for the CORE-LOC™) of up to 200 units per day. The Echoscope® also enhances safety of operations through providing real time visualization below the waterline and can be used for other ancillary and survey tasks on projects.
Blair Cunningham, President of Technology, stated “this is a significant productivity achievement and yet another great example of the return on investments that our customers are making in employing the Echoscope® technology on these types of projects. We continue to invest to enhance our capabilities in the breakwater sector including advancement of our proprietary top end software solution, Construction Monitoring Software, which embeds patented algorithms which not only tracks the blocks into position to ensure accurate placement but also monitors any disruption of the slope or movement of previously laid blocks - a unique feature only afforded by the Coda Octopus Echoscope® and CMS solution. Our Software package contains full reporting capability including the pre-laid and as-laid block information for such breakwater constructions and maintenance. Van Oord is a great counterpart to work with and we thank them for their confidence in our technology”.