Morpeth-based R Thornton Demolition is using a 5.8 tonne breaker supplied by Sandhurst on a dock extension project near Hartlepool.

Able Seaton Port (ASP) is on the northeast coast close to the mouth of the River Tees. It covers 51 hectares, including a 10ha dry dock, and is said to be one of the largest in the world.

The Able Seaton dry dock, already 376m long and 233m, is getting a multi-million pound upgrade. A new wider concrete caisson dry dock gate is being added, along with a new inner dock area. Normally used for dismantling ships, the expansion will enable the yard to take on larger, more complex projects, like decommissioning offshore platforms.

To date, thousands of cubic metres of tough concrete has been broken up and removed. To break out the concrete, Thornton needed a very high performance breaker to match a 60-tonne Cat 365C excavator. Contract manager Nick Heads called on Sandhurst’s rental base in Newcastle to see what they had.

Sandhurst operates a dedicated excavator attachment rental service, with more than 30 different attachment types. Sandhurst recommended an Atlas Copco HB5800 from its rental fleet, confidently predicting it was just the job.

Up against a tight timetable, the Cat/Atlas Copco combination achieved the scheduled 800m³ output per day.

“Matching our 60-tonne Cat 365 with Sandhurst’s big Atlas Copco breaker turned out to be the perfect combination of two immensely powerful pieces of equipment,” says  Nick Heads, “and exactly what we needed to complete the job in six weeks of hard breaking. We turned to Sandhurst because we could be confident they would send us a heavy-duty breaker that would do the job and once again they came up trumps.”