News
03-14-2008
Exploring the seabed with a drillship in the North Sea
BARD Engineering GmbH has commissioned geotechnical research
Emden. The BARD Engineering GmbH commences with further geotechnical research in the North Sea in preparation for the construction of the wind farm “BARD Offshore1”. The company FUGRO CONSULT GmbH from Berlin have now been awarded with the contract. According to the managing director of BARD Engineering GmbH, Heiko Roß, the drillship will be surveying the bottom of the sea within the project area to depths of up to 40 to 45 meters.
A total of 77 drillings are to be taken. The thus extracted drilling cores will be sent to an institute in Hannover for ground-mechanical laboratory tests. Apart from drilling samples, compression samples will be taken too. The structures of the foundations are to be adapted to the conditions of each of the 80 wind farm sites and the offshore transformer platforms as much as possible by using the test results. The tripile foundation developed by the BARD Group consists of three huge foundation piles and an attached transition piece, on which the tower with the plant is constructed. The approx. 80-meter long piles need to vary only in their wall thickness and embedding depth to adapt to the conditions of the ground. The transition piece stays the same at all times.
The planned “BARD Offshore 1” park is situated approx. 100 kilometres northwest of Borkum. There, the North Sea reaches a depth of around 40 meters. Construction is to commence in spring 2009. The German Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Office in Hamburg has given its building permission for the offshore wind farm, which is to have a total capacity of 400 megawatts, in April 2007. This is sufficient for approx. 400.000 multi-person-households. The geotechnical research will start in April, weather permitting, and will last about six weeks. One first preliminary test with 21 drillings was conducted in 2005.
In the course of BARD’s research campaign the planned site of the transformer platform “Nord E.ON1” by the E.ON Netz Offshore GmbH is going to be tested too.
The designated drillship “MV Gargano” is 72 meters long and 16 meters wide.