Our approach to soil Interventions helps reduce cost and manage risk across all phases of project development and during the life of field. Innovations which underpin our service offering include:
Micropiles are in essence a biomimicry solution, recreating the material efficiency and resilience of tree root pile structures which inspired their initial development in 1950’s Italy. Exploiting the synergistic effects of multiples piles installed through an anchor or foundation template, which can withstand high vertical and lateral loads in a wide range of soil conditions.
Building on a revolution in subsea robotics over the past 20+ years, our team include pioneers in the design and development of remote seabed drilling systems which enable the installation of micropiled structures on the seabed. With our drilling technology partners at Mincon, we have adopted advanced drilling techniques which provide high productivity in a wide range of soil conditions, including rock.
By leveraging our drilling methods and advanced acoustic imaging techniques, we have created a unique capability to measure soil properties at the exact anchor site. This streamlines surveys during construction and provides a more comprehensive understanding of soil formation.
We are pushing the boundaries of offshore site investigation by integrating seismic data, in-situ probe surveys, and instrumented piling to develop a 3D subsurface model that captures spatial variation and soil behaviour. The result is a geophysics-informed subsurface model directly compatible with advanced computer codes for geotechnical analysis, enhancing confidence in anchor design during pre- and post-construction phases.
Liberating construction jobs from large and expensive crane vessels in favour of multiple smaller vessels is one of the beneficial disruptions of Subsea Micropiles. For large field developments, we can create an assembly line type process supporting the efficient installation micropiled anchors and foundations in discrete steps, returning control of cost and schedule to the client. We also benefit from mature supply chain and resource partners which can scale and deliver projects on a global basis.
Leveraging some of the same measures employed for soil characterization, we can instrument piled structures and implement a condition monitoring capability, which in turn supports a broader integrity management programme for the life of the field.