REV Drill, a Maryland-based drill manufacturing company and leading U.S. drill equipment supplier, is currently providing custom rock drills and specialty drilling equipment at a new solar installation project at the E.W. Brown Generating Station in Mercer County, Kentucky. REV Drill is working with a large engineering and project-management company, AMEC Foster Wheeler, to provide drilling equipment and training to facilitate the drilling of the solar foundations on this exciting new project.
THE PROJECT
AMEC won a competitive bid to build Kentucky’s largest photovoltaic facility, which will provide 10 megawatts of electricity and will occupy 50 acres with more than 45,000 solar panels. The project was awarded to AMEC Foster Wheeler by Louisville Gas and Electric Company and Kentucky Utilities Company, and is the utility company’s first commercial-scale solar facility. The solar panels are on a fixed rack system and are projected to produce 19,000 megawatt hours of energy, enough to provide approximately 1,500 homes with electricity. The generating station previously used both coal and natural gas to produce electricity.
AMEC Foster Wheeler is currently utilizing five REV Drills for installing the foundations for the solar panel bases. The foundations are 24 inches in diameter drilled into solid rock. REV Drill provided the customized drills and tooling for the project, as well as on-site training for all of AMEC’s drill operators. The drills are outfitted with hydraulically controlled tilting drill masts for effortless leveling of the drill mast to produce perfectly plumb holes on any slope or terrain encountered on the jobsite.
All five REV Drills on the job are equipped with specialty rock drilling tooling called LP/Cluster Drills to ensure dependability, accurate hole alignment, and accelerated production rates. The LP/Cluster drills are powered by large, external, high-pressure air compressors that provide 1,600 cubic feet per minute of air volume at 150 pounds per square inch. The air is directed through the drill’s tooling to the LP/Cluster drill that makes contact with the ground.
The LP/Cluster drills are comprised of multiple drilling heads that are faced with replaceable carbide studs, arranged in a 24-inch diameter drill head that is rotated by the drill. The drill heads all fire individually, much like a jack hammer, as they rotate slowly to pulverize the rock and produce a clean drilled shaft.
ABOUT REV DRILL
REV Drill is a leading drill attachment manufacturer with its headquarters and manufacturing plant based in Frederick, Maryland. Made in the USA, REV Drill is an excavator attachment that is well known in the drilling industry to be Revolutionary, Economical, and Versatile (REV). This acronym truly defines what REV Drill is all about. Fifteen years in business and growing beyond the company owner’s dreams, REV Drill is providing drills for rent or purchase to contractors throughout the world. The unique versatility of REV Drill allows contractors to perform such work as drilled shafts and caissons for bridge work, sound wall foundations, temporary shoring walls and support of excavation, solar installations, auger cast piles, rock drilling, tie backs, soil nails, mini piles, and anchors of all kinds both in the vertical and horizontal drilling positions. Many more applications are possible with the multipurpose REV Drill.
UNIQUE TO THE INDUSTRY
The REV Drill is unique to the industry and an economical solution for drilling in that the drill can be attached to any excavator using the existing hydraulics and can be removed easily to return the excavator to its original use as a digging machine in less than one hour. The drill can be attached to the end of the excavator’s boom as the second member or the end of the excavator’s arm where the bucket normally attaches, as the third member of the excavator. This is what makes REV Drill a revolutionary, economical solution for the construction industry. Other drill attachments for excavators on the market require the excavator to be dedicated to the drill with complicated hydraulic power packs and electronics added to the excavator and the drill cannot easily be removed. REV Drill has proven to be an economical solution for contractors because they can utilize an excavator that is already in their equipment fleet and contractors can easily attach the drill, perform their drilling on the job, and then easily remove the drill to return the excavator to its original stick and bucket.
PROVIDING SOLUTIONS
REV Drill designs, builds, sells, and rents economical drilling solutions. The REV Drill team provides individualized support for every customer and every job including plan reviews, consultation, operator training, on-site support, and a dedicated and knowledgeable sales and service team. REV Drill’s team engages directly with their client’s estimators, engineers, project managers, or company owners to review plans and job requirements. This collaboration ensures that their clients are getting the right drill and tooling, based on value-engineering principles, to successfully complete their job and are utilizing the most economical drilling solutions available in the industry. ■
For More Information:  For more information about REV Drill, visit www.revdrill.com.
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Modern Contractor Solutions – May 2016
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