Lathe Machining

A US Department of Energy prime contractor required a custom built machine with all equipment and associated tools required to cut existing 42" (1067mm) and 48" (1219mm) OD spirally welded and rolled steel pipe piles. These were fully submerged in the Ohio river, a turbulent environment with very low to zero visibility. Cut locations had to be controlled within +/ - 1.0" (25.4mm) at depths up to 30' (9.1m) without diver assistance.

Wachs Solution:
Custom design and build a PICC (Platform Internal Casing Cutter) ID to OD cutting system. The PICC is comprised of a self centering clamping arrangement with an integrated lathe cutting module. To deploy, the PICC is manually lowered to the pre-determined cutoff location, where a Topside Control Unit was used for clamping and energizing the lathe cutting.