Vulcan 5150: Specifications and Information

Progressing from the 5100, the six (6) 5150’s produced were made in 1978-9 and delivered to four customers: McDermott, Brown & Root, Raymond and Santa Fe.  Their main purpose was to drive piles for the “mudslide” platforms at the mouth of the Mississippi River, which were suffering failures due to scour loads.

Specifications for the hammer are below.

Offshore Specifications for 010-340 Hammers

Offshore Specifications for 530-6300 Hammers

The general arrangements are below.  The hammer was produced in two (2) versions: a 120″ jaw version for 96″ diameter pile, and a 144″ jaw version for 120″ pile.

Like the 040 and 060 hammers, the hammers had growing pains, in part due to their sheer size and in part to some changes Vulcan made to the basic design that didn’t work out.  Vulcan stood behind its products and remedied the faults.  The hammers successfully drove many piles in the Gulf of Mexico in the years immediately after they were produced.

Vulcan’s Executive Vice President, Pembroke M. Warrington, in front of a Vulcan 5150 for his customer, Brown and Root, April 1979. It arrived from Chicago on the rail car, waiting to be offloaded. Equipment of this size was almost commonplace in the offshore oil industry. Twelve years later Pem stated that Vulcan had been “the experience of a lifetime,” and equipment like this was a large reason why that was so.

A close up of the steam chest area of the 5150, showing the fairly novel steam hose arrangement and the use of four (4) cables to hold the hammer together.

A Vulcan 5150 owned by McDermott driving large diameter pile using a conical transition piece. The setup worked but the transition pieces, which are still used with offshore wind turbines, are not the optimal way to adapt the hammer to the pile.

Forty years later, these hammers are still active; below are some photos of the 5150’s which are still working.  Photos courtesy of Pile Hammer Equipment, which has produced an update to this workhorse.