What is water-powered DTH drilling?

Learn more about the LKAB Wassara-Hammer, its history, technology and key benefits.

Better borehole quality & accuracy

Cost effective

High & versatile performance

Less enviromental impact

Safe & sustainable drilling

Water-powered DTH drilling by LKAB Wassara

In the year 1988, engineers at LKAB Wassara developed a DTH-hammer which is powered by high pressure water instead of air.

Watch a video about our water-powered technology

There are several benefits with using water-powered DTH compared to air-powered DTH. From a physics point of view many of the benefits arise from the fact that water is an incompressible media and air is not.

Energy consumption is roughly a quarter compared to air, resulting in lower carbon emission and a lower energy bill. In the case of water-powered DTH, the water leaving the drill bit in the hole is at a low velocity and ambient pressure.

However, with air-powered DTH the air leaving the drill bit in the hole is at a high velocity and high pressure. This means that the risk of damaging surrounding structures in sensitive areas such as urban environments and dams, is greatly reduced with water-powered DTH.

How does it work?

The LKAB Wassara DTH-hammer consist of only two moving parts: the piston and the valve. With so few moving parts, the smart solution delivers reliable high performance drilling in the most challenging conditions.

Hammer-animation

Click on the image below to start the video and see an in-depth view of our water-powered technology.

Wassara Hammer-animation

Key benefits

The LKAB Wassara DTH-hammer consist of only two moving parts: the piston and the valve.

With so few moving parts, the smart solution delivers reliable high performance drilling in the most challenging conditions.

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Discover the many benefits and applications of water-powered drilling