Blue Piling Pile Hammer

The monopile has proven to be the most efficient, cost-effective and simple foundation technology for
offshore wind. With the growth of production facilities and installation vessels, as well as improvements
in the design envelope, it has become increasingly popular.

Conventional monopile installation uses hydraulic impact hammers. This has detrimental effects on the
foundation and the environment. Due to the high acceleration levels, caused by the steel-on-steel
impact from pile driving, monopiles cannot be outfitted with preplaced secondary steel. Thus, additional
offshore activities are needed to assemble the foundation. Significant fatigue damage can be inflicted
during installation, which results in conservative design margins and heavier foundations than
necessary. To prevent damage to marine wildlife, some countries have introduced regulatory thresholds
for underwater noise. This creates a need for costly noise mitigation measures. Lastly, current
installation technology does not allow full decommissioning of the entire monopile which would result
in tens of thousands of tons of steel lost in the seabed.

These aspects have triggered the invention of the BLUE Piling.

Short description

Blue Piling is a new technology to hammer monopiles for offshore wind turbines with considerable less
noise and less stress on the monopile. It uses a falling water mass instead off a steel hammer to drive
the monopile into the seabed

Results

Underwater noise produced by the BLUE Hammer is approximately 20 dB lower than noise produced by
conventional hydraulic hammers. Lower noise levels result in lower environmental loads, reducing the
costs for noise mitigation and making noise mitigation unnecessary in most conditions.

Rotterdam Harbor pile driving with blue pile Technology.

Blue Piling technoly at the ICE.