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Bauer Maschinen GmbH is looking back at a success story: 25 years ago, the very first large-scale project was completed successfully with a Bauer diaphragm wall cutter. Since then Bauer continually developed and improved its cutter technology. By now, over 200 machines have been sold worldwide. Major projects have been carried out on all continents, sometimes under extreme conditions. The incentive for manufacturing the first diaphragm wall cutter was a project in Northern Bavaria, when Bauer realized that the contractual completion date was threatened due to the non-performance of a cutter that had been purchased. As a result of this situation, Bauer’s management team decided to manufacture their own cutter. Under the most severe time pressure, the first Bauer diaphragm wall cutter was designed and built in just four months. On site it coped well with all contractual requirements. The project was successfully completed in the initially specified contract period. Since then, the cutter technology has been continually developed and improved by Bauer Maschinen. Ever thicker walls became possible. The technology was able to attain ever increasing depths, after the long hoses were transferred onto vertically mounted hose reels. As a result of deploying steering plates, the level of accuracy in terms of cutter verticality improved steadily. Since the beginning of the nineties, Bauer diaphragm wall cutters operated successfully in the hardest rock formations with rock roller bits fitted to the cutter wheels. Bauer Maschinen demonstrated its creativity, in particular, when diaphragm wall cutters had to be adapted for specific conditions. This is how, in 1991, the versatile “City Cutter“ BC15, which was deployed on confined inner-city sites, was developed in co-operation with French partner, Bachy.
The low-headroom machine, which was designed and built within a few months in 1999 opened up new opportunities. After the successful completion of an enclosure wall for a Metro station in Singapore under an existing building at the airport, the cutter known by now also as “Tunnel Cutter“ was deployed in China, where, in 2003, on the Yeleh Dam project a cut-off wall was constructed for the dam from inside a narrow tunnel. In the past decade, Bauer diaphragm wall cutters have been deployed numerous times for highly challenging tasks. In extremely difficult geological conditions, diaphragm cut-off walls were installed at the Dhauligangha Dam project in the Indian Himalaya and for the dam at the Peribonka hydroelectric power station in Canada, where the cutter cut through hard rock to depths of up to 120 m. In Australia, the Hinze Dam was sealed. In the meantime, Bauer Maschinen has developed its own specialist foundation construction duty cranes. Both models, the MC 64 and MC 128, are being deployed as base carriers for diaphragm wall cutters. At bauma 2010, a diaphragm wall cutter designed for depths of up to 150 m was displayed. Today, design work is already in progress for cutter depths in excess of 200 m. The Cutter Soil Mixing or CSM system, for which Bauer has been awarded the bauma Innovation Prize in 2004 is also based on the cutter technology. More than fifty CSM units have already been sold all over the world.
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25 Years Bauer Cutter Technology
Shortly afterwards, the “Mini Cutter“ mounted on rails became a great success as a cutter with a transverse horizontal hose recoil system for operating in limited headroom conditions of just 5 m. First, the cutter was deployed in Tokyo and then in the South Korean capital Seoul. At bauma 1995, Bauer showcased the compact cutter CBC 33 mounted on a specially designed base machine, followed at bauma 1998 by the CBC 25.
