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Employees of Hanwha Corporation's Global Division pose for a commemorative photo at a Samho Development construction site in Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province, on Oct. 30. / Courtesy of Hanwha

Hanwha has developed a smart drilling rig that incorporates digital technology into existing drilling equipment and completed field demonstrations ahead of its introduction at large-scale construction sites. The technology can improve drilling accuracy and productivity without replacing existing equipment entirely. The company also plans to establish construction cost estimation standards to enable its application to public construction projects.

According to Hanwha on Nov. 2, its Global Division developed South Korea's first Machine Guidance (MG) smart drilling rig and held a field demonstration on Oct. 30 at a Samho Development construction site in Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province, together with the Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology and Korea National University of Transportation.

The MG smart drilling rig is a system that adds sensors and digital guidance devices to existing crawler drills. It provides operators with real-time guidance on drilling positions, directions and depths entered in the design data, reducing the time spent manually comparing survey information and improving drilling accuracy. Because it uses existing equipment, it can also reduce the investment burden associated with introducing new machinery.

Hanwha conducted field demonstrations over the past six months in cooperation with the Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology and Korea National University of Transportation. Hanwha provided the equipment, operating technology and construction data, while Korea National University of Transportation analyzed working hours, manpower requirements and drilling accuracy.

The demonstrations confirmed that productivity improved as preparatory processes such as surveying and marking, manpower requirements and lost working time were reduced. However, specific improvement rates were not disclosed.

The data obtained through the demonstrations will be used as a basis for establishing standard unit cost estimates for smart drilling rigs. Currently, the absence of construction cost estimation standards reflecting the operating characteristics and productivity improvements of smart drilling rigs limits their application to public projects.

Hanwha plans to expand its business by integrating smart drilling technology with its proprietary digital blasting process management platform, HATS (Hanwha As a Total Solution).

HATS is a platform that integrates data management across the entire blasting process, from blasting design to drilling, explosive charging, detonation and results analysis. Based on this platform, the company plans to expand the supply of digital blasting solutions to construction and mining sites in South Korea and overseas.

                                                                                                            Lee Seo-yeon