Ulrich Geotechnik is a German drilling contractor that offers geotechnics in its portfolio of services. The company has recently made the move to sonic drilling for this purpose having sourced a sonic rig from Eijkelkamp.

Talking about the move to sonic, co-managing director of Ulrich Geotechnik, Luis Ulrich provides a brief history of his family's business and how the change of technique is beneficial: "I studied civil engineering and geotechnics and now I manage all the operational processes here at Ulrich Geotechnik.

"We started with a well drilling company, founded by my grandfather. Then my father built up the engineering side of the business in 1975. He integrated the well drilling company five years later, so in 1980.

"Our first experience of sonic drilling was in 2004 when my father and my brother went to a demonstration in Canada. However, we only started drilling with sonic half a year ago.

"We are using a single wall core barrel on this site. What is planned is a deep excavation to provide a three-level underground parking lot for a hospital but the site is next to a railway. But we also use the AquaLock and double wall core barrel for softer formations or alluvial formations. We carry out CPT work as well with the same rig.

"We are drilling glacial formations mainly in moraine clay with stones and boulders. This is one of our projects with a higher demand regarding the quality of the soil samples as the excavation pit and also the foundations are dependent on that data. We go up to 18m deep and if we need more information about the subsoil we advise to go deeper. We are drilling nine boreholes to get an overview of the whole subsoil area.

"With sonic drilling, we get the better-quality samples in a shorter time. And the rigs are smaller and lighter compared to conventional drilling rigs but with the same depth performance. Not only that but EijkelkampSonicSampDrill offers very good support and answers all of our questions."

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