The Carbon Trust and Fistuca, in conjunction with industry partners have completed the offshore trial of the Fistuca BLUE 25M hammer as part of the Offshore Wind Accelerator BLUE PILOT project.
The offshore test was carried out on 13 August 2018, using Van Oord’s offshore heavy lift installation vessel, Svanen, off the coast of the Netherlands. Industry partners of the project are E.ON, EDPR, EnBW, Equinor, Ørsted, Shell, Sif, SSE, Van Oord, and Vattenfall.
BLUE Hammer
The BLUE Hammer is an innovative, new hammer utilising a large water tank to provide a more energetic, but quieter blow for offshore installation. It is designed to reduce underwater noise levels by up to 20 dB (SEL), and is predicted to reduce the fatigue damage during installation on the pile by up to 90 per cent.
This could not only remove the need for underwater noise mitigation, but also enable secondary steel to be pre-welded to the monopile before installation, potentially unlocking ‘transition piece free’ designs. Furthermore, by reducing the amount of time and number of operations carried out offshore, the innovative piling method improves health and safety and result in a significantly lower installation cost.
Validation and Optimisation
The offshore test provided significant insights and understanding for future commercial operations. Data was recorded on both acceleration levels on the monopile as well as underwater noise levels in the surrounding area which will now be analysed and interpreted to validate studies that were undertaken prior to the test. This will allow Fistuca to optimise the hammer for future use on commercial offshore wind farms.
The OWA BLUE PILOT project is funded with subsidies from the Topsector Energie programme by the Dutch Ministry of Economics.
Watch a video of the BLUE 25M Hammer below.
