Author: Don Warrington

The 014 and 016 hammers were the first single-acting hammers Vulcan produced based on the Super-Vulcan design.  The main difference between the two was the ram weight, as can be seen below.

These hammers are without the Vari-Cycle feature; the drawing at the very top shows the Vari-Cycle added.

Specifications for the onshore hammers (which sported 32″ female jaws) are below.

Specifications, Vulcan Bulletin 68T, 1991

Specifications, Vulcan Bulletin 68K

Specifications, Vulcan Bulletin 68G

The 016 was the basis of the Conmaco 160, which Vulcan first produced for Conmaco before they “struck out on their own.”

Vulcan also produced these hammers in an offshore configuration with 54″ male jaws, as shown below.  The first of these was for Ingram Contractors (that’s right, the subsidiary of the book distribution company, they got into the platform installation business) in 1968.  T.L. James and McDermott also purchased these hammers.

Specifications for the offshore hammers are below.

One major difference between the offshore and onshore models is the raised vs. lowered steam chest.  The onshore model cylinder design was modelled after the Super-Vulcan hammers, which required a steam chest raised above the bottom of the cylinder.  For the offshore hammers this was dispensed with and the steam chest design was more like the Warrington-Vulcan hammers, low on the cylinder.  The main benefits were a shorter slide bar and less chance for core burn-in in the air/steam passages.

The heavier build of these hammers (as opposed to the earlier single-acting hammers) was more beneficial offshore than onshore.  The frame is more durable (although it’s hard to argue with a configuration that lasts 120 years!) but this added to the weight.

The weight of the 014 and 016 may have put them at something of a disadvantage, but they have given good service in the sixty-years they’ve been out, as can be seen in this video (courtesy of Pile Hammer Equipment.)

The Vulcan 400C and 600C were the company’s “final frontier” on the Super-Vulcan hammers.  It invested a considerable amount of resources in the engineering of these products, both offshore and (in the case of the 400C) onshore.

Promotion wasn’t lacking in the specifications either, as can be seen below.

Bulletin 70F Specifications

Bulletin 70D Specifications

Vulcan Drawing DWPB-1961 (Offshore Hammer Specifications)

Yet the fact remains that neither of these hammers was ever built.  Why was this so?

For the onshore hammer, demand for hammers this large onshore only came on Vulcan’s “radar screen” in the mid- and late 1960’s, and by that time the offshore market was dominating Vulcan’s activity.  There was also the persistent “blow rate” controversy.

For offshore, on paper a differential acting hammer made perfect sense.  Hourly barge rates were (and are) high; the more rapidly the work got done, the better.  And the length of the piles was the last nail in the coffin for pile driving formulae; the wave equation and pile driving analysers were taking over.  The energy into the pile could be monitored, as noted in Pile Installation by Pile Driving.

However, there were other issues.  In some cases the pile rebound timed itself to return with the next blow, resulting in the “dancing on the pile” issue Vulcan ran into sometimes with the smaller Super-Vulcan hammers.  Beyond that, the air or steam consumption of these hammers was considerable.  The 600C, for example, used the same boiler size as the 560 with 40% less striking energy.  To penetrate a hard layer, the additional energy was worth more than the higher blow rate.  That could have been compensated for by designing a Super-Vulcan hammer with a 5′ equivalent stroke, but Vulcan never tried to present this to its customers.

It’s yet another “what-if” situation that Vulcan faced in its long history.

Above is an order form Vulcan included in its Bulletin 40 on leaders.  Below is an explanation of that form.

It’s still a pretty handy guide when you’re thinking about purchasing or renting pile hammer leaders.

The 200C was another important hammer in the Vulcan line, being the “basis” for the single-acting 020, 030, 520, 530 and 535 hammers.  The 200C was also important because, like the 140C, it was made in both onshore and offshore configurations.  Some general arrangements of both are shown below.

One important note for the 200C and its single-acting counterparts is that the onshore and offshore hammers, in addition to different jaws, have different sizes ram points and driving accessories.  The difference is explained here.

Specifications for each (on different spec tables) are shown below.

Bulletin 70F Specifications

Bulletin 70D Specifications

Bulletin 70A Specifications

Vulcan Drawing DWPB-1961 (Offshore Hammer Specifications)

The Vulcan 200C hammer. This image dates back to Vulcan’s intended website of the 1990’s.

Not all Vulcan hammers in the field were full size. This scale, working model of a Vulcan 200C was mode of brass by Frits Teerling, Brown & Root’s redoubtable equipment superintendent.

Vulcan 200C hammer driving piles offshore. This hammer is small by offshore standards; the leaders shown are simple. This was taken from the crew helicopter as it approached the derrick barge; a spectacular shot of a fairly ordinary operation.

Although not a particularly popular model, the 140C was a groundbreaker in many respects because of its place in Vulcan’s product line.

First, it was one of the first of Vulcan’s hammers to be larger than the Warrington-Vulcan hammers.  Second, it was the first with a “single-acting version,” in this case the 014.  In that respect it was a significant break from the Warrington-Vulcan construction, being much heavier.  This design was carried over into Vulcan’s offshore hammer line.

Speaking of offshore hammers, the 140C was the smallest Vulcan offshore hammer that was really viable; general arrangement are shown below.

The hammer sported the 54″ male jaws, which were standard on Vulcan offshore hammers, single-acting and differential-acting alike, for hammers up to the 530 and 535.

Specifications for onshore and offshore 140C alike are shown below.

Bulletin 70F Specifications

Bulletin 70D Specifications

Bulletin 70A Specifications

Vulcan Drawing DWPB-1961 (Offshore Hammer Specifications)

Another application for the 140C was the sand drain hammer, shown at the left. Sand drains are not conventional driven piles but are used for accelerating consolidation drainage, as described here.  The cylinder head is different (to allow for a retractable hook to raise the hammer)  but otherwise the hammer is pretty much the same as a standard onshore 140C.

Above is the differential acting hammer cycle, an explanation from the Raymond Superintendent’s Handbook, with some specifications.  The cycle is the same for both Raymond and Vulcan hammers.  The 65C specifications given above are for the Raymond 65C, not the Vulcan 65C.