A jack-up platform - also known as a lifting platform or jack-up - is indispensable for projects on and around the water. Since the 1950s, a jack-up platform has often been used as a mobile offshore drilling unit. Thanks to the legs of the floating work platform that stands firmly on the sea, lake or river bed, wind, tides and waves have no influence on the stability of a jack-up platform.
However, a jack-up platform can be used for many more projects than just (oil) drilling at sea. It is also the safe option for carrying out repairs and maintenance work on bridges, for working at height in combination with cherry pickers or for drilling anchors in sheet piling, for example. Although most jack-up platforms are containerised and therefore built from 40 ft containers, they offer only the standard benefits package. While many projects require different specifications. A custom-made jack-up platform offers the solution.
How can a custom-made jack-up platform differ from the standard?
Overhangs / chamfered ends
A jack-up platform with a sloping and overhanging bow and stern has several advantages. Firstly, it can reach further into the slope than a standard platform. If a span to the shore is required, this can be achieved by means of a shorter ramp or shorter steel dragline bulkheads. This means that the span will also have more bearing capacity for equipment and project materials to be transported to and from the shore. In such a case, work can even be carried out from the span!
The sloping ends also have another major advantage when drilling from the jack-up platform. This can be done at an angle. The drilling piles 'disappear', as it were, under the jack-up platform, while the stability of the jack-up platform remains the same.
Full surface available on deck
Large projects often involve a lot of large equipment and the necessary project materials. In most cases, a standard jack-up platform has no space below deck, which means that the deck is partly taken up by parts of the jack-up platform. Browema's custom-built jack-up barge does have a large space below deck, which is where the power pack, the gas oil tank and the drinking water tank, among other things, are located. Advantage: the entire surface of the jack-up platform's deck is available for the project.
Always the right posts for support
By both points and elephant feet available, the piles can always be matched to the subsoil. Depending on where a project is taking place, there may be, for example, a sea clay soil, a rocky subsoil or even concrete. By adapting the piles to this, not only the stability of the jack-up is assured. The disturbance of flora and fauna is also taken into account. By using the right piles, the impact on nature is minimised.
Deviating dimensions
Because a custom-made jack-up platform is not constructed from 40 ft containers, different sizes are possible. The Browema jack-up platform is narrower but longer. This means that the jack-up platform often fits between the pillars of a bridge, for example, or can offer just the right width by using its length transversely.
At long-term projects It may happen that a standard jack-up platform does not suffice, or that Browema's existing custom-made version is not entirely suitable either. Developing a custom-made jack-up platform can be interesting, especially for such large-scale projects. Browema has experience in this and is open to partnerships.