FEATURE Soilmec, the renowned engineering
arm of the Trevi Group,
is celebrating its 50th year
of designing, manufacturing
and distributing machinery that
can be used for any geotechnical
application, anywhere.
The company has grown tremendously
in those five decades, operating
out of 45 offices around the world with
a solid network of distributors, agents
and subsidiary companies. Soilmec
North America headquarters is in
Houston, Texas, with two Canadian
distributors situated on each side of the
country: Western Equipment Solutions
LLC (U.S. Rockies and Western Canada)
and Equipment Sales & Services Ltd.
(Eastern Canada).
In more than 90 countries, on five
continents, Soilmec equipment is out
getting the job done in a variety of
climatic conditions, soils, cultures and
social contexts.
In some ways, Soilmec has come a
long way from its 1969 origins when
Davide Trevisani celebrated his
equipment factory’s official opening
day in the village of Pievesestina, Italy.
Fifty years later, that original factory
is still in operation, assembling piling
rigs, cranes and hydromills. Two more
factories in Asolo and Parma (both in
Italy) produce drilling and grouting
rigs, while in Brazil, India and China,
facilities look after maintenance and
refurbishment of the Soilmec fleet.
Thinking and working
outside the box
Since the beginning, the driving
concept behind Soilmec was to develop
safe, innovative technologies to fully
serve the equipment needs of the
construction industry.
In 1965, the first rotary RT3
(Trevisani rotary head with three
rollers) was designed and built in
the maintenance workshop at Pali
Trevisani, four years before the actual
factory began production. Within ten
years, the company had developed two
more specialized pieces of equipment:
the RTA, a truck-mounted drilling
rig with a mast that could be lowered
during transportation, and the RH-2, a
multi-purpose mast used to construct
the very first continuous flight auger
(CFA) piles.
The 1980s saw the beginning of a
great evolution in Soilmec products
with the development of the BH-12,
a hydraulic grab guided by a kelly
bar outside the trench and ropesuspended,
and the SM-305, the first
micropile rig that would become the
benchmark in its field.
In 1982 the invention of the
parallelogram system transformed
the ground engineering market,
allowing ease of centring the pile and
transportation with the mast lying
horizontal on the turret. The parallelogram
was used on the CM-42, a CFA
dedicated drilling rig and on the R-12,
the first completely hydraulic drilling
rig and the forerunner of Soilmec’s
entire range of piling rigs with more
than 7,000 units sold around the world
to date.
The company achieved its first
patent in 1983, covering the telescopic
cab, the crane-lifting frame and pivoting
counterweight for the self-propelling
drilling rig.
During the 1990s, Soilmec took part
in large-scale projects proving the value
of its equipment while continuing
to develop new technologies such as
SR cased piles, the four-bar linkage
machine with Cardan coupling and
screwed joints for casings. Meanwhile,
engineers were studying the cased
secant piles technique for deep excavations
in urban areas as an alternative
system to standard diaphragm walls
when grab or hydromill technologies
can’t be used.
By 1999, Soilmec had filed another
13 patents.
During the next 15 years, Soilmec
equipment and technologies grew
exponentially as the company consolidated
markets, upgraded and
completed its product range. In 2003,
Soilmec absorbed the workforce and
technicians under engineer Patrizio
40 Q2 2019 www.pilingcanada.ca
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