Established 38 years ago in Sharjah, BEDROCK Construction Equipment supplies original machines as well as rents construction equipment and provides customised equipment solutions to its clients.
Headquartered in Jebel Ali Freezone, BEDROCK Construction Equipment is the exclusive dealer of UK based BSP TEX Ltd for the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman markets. In 2021, BEDROCK Construction Equipment was handpicked by BSP TEX to solely distribute their products in the Middle East region. BSP TEX is a 117-year-old company that designs and manufactures hydraulic piling hammers, ground improvement equipment, rapid impact compactors (RIC), road maintenance machinery, JX mobile self-erecting piling rigs, hydraulic powerpacks and spare parts. All BSP-TEX’s products are manufactured in the UK.
“We also have the dealership rights of Japanese KATO Crawler Cranes. The KATO products which we market include brand new crawler cranes ranging from 50 tonnes to 250 tonnes capacity. We also undertake sales of their genuine parts,” says Nabil Salim, Owner and Director, BEDROCK Construction Equipment.
Besides sole dealership rights from original equipment manufacturers, BEDROCK has a large rental fleet of construction machines and equipment such as – crawler cranes (capacity ranging from 50 tonnes to 350 tonnes), BSP RIC rigs (9 and 16 tonnes), high energy impact compaction (HEIC) rollers and electric vibroflots. “Our rental fleet of vibroflots are 180KW and ideal for vibro-compaction and vibro-replacement jobs,” says Nabil.
BSP’s Rapid Impact Compactor
BEDROCK recently added BSP’s latest rapid impact compactor 16000 to its rental portfolio. “This is a high demand product, and we are the first equipment rental company to have this product in the UAE market. We’ve had inquiries from multiple contractors for this machine and are now looking forward to meeting their requirements,” he continues.
This compactor uses a technique to increase the bearing capacity of soils through controlled impact. The treatment is effective in the top layers of the earth typically 5m or more depending on soil condition. How it works is a drop weight of 9 to 16 tonnes (depending on size) is dropped onto a special foot assembly 40-60 times a minute. The foot always remains in contact with the ground. The RIC is twice as fast and at least 40% cheaper than conventional methods.
Maintenance of the machine is easy to perform with multiple easy access points. Its base unit excavator does not need modifying or extra counterweight. The machine uses its existing hydraulic excavator circuits, and its short boom can be used with any excavator. It also reuses the original boom cylinders. The machine comes with a hammer cylinder which is efficiently designed and uses a relatively low oil flow.
“Most of our clients need these machines to execute their ground improvement projects. And considering the huge demand in the GCC construction market, especially UAE and KSA, there are a lot of upcoming opportunities for RIC machines to do ground compaction,” adds Nabil.
BEDROCK is an ISO9001, ISO14001, OHSAS18001 accredited company. “We have a dedicated workshop facility in Jebel Ali for equipment maintenance. There’s also a separate spare parts room for the storage and supply of spare parts,” continues Nabil.
Pre-owned cranes and construction equipment
The company also has all types of pre-owned cranes available for purchase. These include rough terrain cranes, truck mounted, all terrain and crawler cranes. The company sources these from trusted partners in Japan and Europe. BEDROCK only purchases the used cranes from companies that have a quality used product. “Regardless of brand or model, we source the highest quality pre-owned cranes from the years of great relations we have established with global crane dealers. We sold a number of pre-owned cranes and other construction equipment to our customers in the Middle East, Africa and Asian markets.
BEDROCK provides equipment refurbishment services from its workshop in Jebel Ali. They refurbish all types of cranes to meet customer requirements, these include cranes that are damaged due to onsite accidents as well.
Projects
Some of the projects where BEDROCK’s crawler cranes are currently being used are in Saudi Arabia’s NEOM, The Line project. “A few of our cranes are in use at Abu Dhabi’s reclaimed land development projects as well. Also, we have rented our cranes to one of the leading oil and gas contractors for the NRDB Monobuoy Installation Project in Mexico. Our crane and operators are currently there and will be working there for almost a year or more. We have recently also supplied our crawler crane for work in the Maldives on a floating barge with an international geotechnical contractor who is working on the Greater Male Connectivity Project,” adds Nabil.
Besides these BEDROCK’s other rental machines are also in use in many projects in Abu Dhabi such as the Baniyas North Project, the Shamal Project at Khalifa Port and at Al Hudayriyat Island PDA Enabling works. In Fujairah, their machines are at work on the Dadna Project. They’ve also rented their machines for a gas to energy project in Guyana, South America.
BSP-TEX RIC
The RIC unit is mounted on standard excavators, typically in the 40-90 tonne class and can be mobilised in minutes from arrival on site. The machine can be accurately controlled from the excavator cab and the degree of compaction electronically monitored. The impact foot is always in contact with the ground and eliminates the risk of flying debris. Unlike conventional dynamic compaction, other activities can take place in proximity. The impact of energy and soil deflection are recorded by the onboard computer for presentation of compaction data to site managers. The data can highlight weak zones where extra fill is required or zones where underground obstructions were present (i.e., previously hidden old foundations).
The RIC machine within a single shift of approximately 10 hours can be expected to spend 70% of its time compacting, with the remaining time given to dolley changing, routine maintenance and site preparation and layout.
Ground coverage
For the machine to efficiently cover the ground varies from country to country. A common pattern used to cover uses a track in three passes. The outer points are compacted first, followed by the intermediate and lastly the infilling positions. This has the effect of achieving the best depth of influence. The first pass affects the ground to a deeper level than the latter. Most granular fills and some silts are compactable, the best results are achieved where the fill is a well-graded particle size. An area of 800m²-2500m² can be covered in an average day (depending on the ‘blow-perposition’ setting.) This also allows time for routine maintenance and rotation of the special dolley pads located in the foot assembly which transfers the force of the blow through to the ground.
