Bespoke Slug Retention System
Offshore drilling of wind turbines is a challenging application. Remote, with no access to spare parts or additional help or machinery, everything needs to be planned in advance with no margin for error.
When a customer approached HMT needing to drill the housing around a wind turbine motor, the application required that the metal ‘Slug’ that cutting would create could not fall into the delicate motor mechanism. Doing so would result in the inability to retrieve it and ultimately critical motor failure.
To ensure the success of the project and guarantee the safe removal of all waste material, HMT developed a bespoke ‘Slug Retention’ system.
Using a customised pilot drilling process coupled with a bespoke pilot pin, the system maintained contact with, and secured, the ejected slug, guaranteeing that it would not fall on hole completion.
Putting the HMT system into practice, our customer was able to safely and successfully make essential modifications to a wind farm of around 100 turbines.
No unexpected downtime was incurred and the job could progress without spending excess time developing backup plans and critical failure contingencies, ultimately saving time, money and stress.
Results
Over 100 wind turbines were safely & successfully repaired offshore thanks to the custom-designed HMT Slug Retention system
