Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD)

For the design and the work preparation an assessment has to be made of the safe installation depth of the drilling, the curvatures to apply, the requirements of the drilling fluid system, the expected penetration rates and the possible occurrence of natural or man-made obstacles in the ground.

With drilling in rock possible features, such as the effectiveness of the drill at the rock face, the wear of the drilling equipment, possible loss of drilling fluid through the occurrence of faults, fissures and karst, have to be considered.

GeoConsult has extensive experience with the application of the HDD techniques in The Netherlands and all over the world, obtained in widely varying projects in soil and rock, where a judgement of the geology, geotechnics and the application of drilling processes was required.

Where roads, railroads, canals, rivers and other obstacles have to be passed with pipelines, electricity– or communication-cables horizontal directional drilling, being one of the “no-dig” techniques, may be a suitable solution.

The knowledge of the geological and geotechnical conditions are essential for the assessment of the technical feasibility of these projects.