Drilling boreholes for geotechnical purposes such as sampling, in-situ tests and permeability testing are usually performed with the aid of drilling machines. These heavy duty machines generally use internal combustion motors to provide energy to hydraulic pumps feeding the different actuators needed to push, rotate and hammer the drill bit into the ground. This results in a relatively noisy and polluted environment for the workers and the surrounding area. With the popularization of electric vehicles, it’s time drilling machines also make the switch to electric power. This paper presents one such prototype machine developed by Fondasol company, with the initially proposed technical specifications and the realized equipment. Autonomy for up to one week has been observed on real sites, depending on the project’s drilling objective. The use of electric motors allows for a new type of measuring while drilling, as the measurement of electric current and voltage is much more reliable than hydraulic pressure and flow rates. With this electric-based design, additional external sensors are no longer necessary. A first insight into this new type of measurements and its physical meaning is also given and discussed within this paper.
Rispal et al. (Tue,) studied this question.