Underground Infrastructure - March 2023 - 19

mine if there was enough space to position
the drill on the seawall or if it would need
to be placed on a floating barge. "
With a better idea of the challenges
his crew would encounter during the
drilling process, Krantz determined the
Vermeer D40x55 S3 horizontal directional
drill was the right size machine for
this type of work.
" We needed a machine that was powerful
enough to drill through a cobble
floor and could support the volumes of
drilling fluid we would need to maintain
the bore path from pilot bore to pull
back, " said Krantz. " The drill also needed
to have rods with some rigidity since
the drill string would have to go through
20 feet to 40 feet of water before contacting
the ground underneath. And finally,
the drill needed to be light enough to be
lifted into place by a crane. "
With a bore plan in hand, the K3 Directional
Drilling crew got to work. Because
of the limited access on these inlet
bores, crews have to crane equipment
into position ahead of time.
to design a bore for an inlet electrical crossing
for a movable bridge a few years ago.
K3 Directional Drilling is well-known
throughout Florida for planning and executing
large and small utility installation
projects. The company is a preferred
partner of Walt Disney World, helped
build out critical infrastructure for The
Villages retirement community, and regularly
performs large-diameter horizontal
directional drilling (HDD) projects
for city municipalities.
But it's not just what Krantz's team
can do with a directional drill that sets the
organization apart from other contractors.
Krantz is an expert at planning and
mapping out bores ahead of time. This is
why the Turners enlisted Krantz's help.
Critical planning
" We've been using Vermeer BoreAid
design tool and Vermeer Projects bore
planning tools for years, " said Krantz.
" These two boring tools are an integrated
part of our operations and essential to
our planning process. "
For these inlet projects, Krantz designed
the bores so his crew could complete
the shore-distance bores with minimal
stress to the pipe and drill rod during
the process.
" The inlet bores we've completed in
Jacksonville, Sarasota, Naples, Ft. Myers,
New Smyrna, Delray Beach and Hobe
Sound have only been approximately 100
feet long. But they were all required to be
approximately 15 feet below the bottom
of the inlet between the bridge fenders, "
explained Krantz.
" To achieve that, we needed to plan our
setback distance and entry angles to reach
the required depth while leaving enough
space to come up on the other side before
reaching the seawall. We also had to deter " In
addition to the directional drilling,
we usually also have one or two mini
excavators on hand to help with moving
pipe around, " Krantz added. " The machines
are typically hoisted into position
on top of the seawall and walked onto a
barge, if the project requires it. One of the
major challenges with this process is the
weather. We must ensure the water's not
too choppy and wait until the tide is right
before work can begin. "
Hillsboro Inlet project
The Hillsboro Inlet at Pompano Beach is
one of the bores the K3 Directional Drilling
team tackled in 2022. " This was one
of the few inlet bores we've done that we
could set up the drill on top of the seawall
instead of on a barge, " said Krantz. " But the
ground underneath the water was rocky,
requiring extra steps from our drill crew. "
The crew welded together steel casings,
lowered them into the water and wedged
them into the soft, sandy top layer of material
at the bottom of the inlet. The drill
operator then ran the drill rod through the
pipe as it penetrated the subsurface below.
" With the entry angle of this bore,
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Underground Infrastructure - March 2023

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