Rapid construction at a major heavy-duty Sheffield industrial facility has seen main sub-contractor Cidon Construction continue with advancing the development. In order to facilitate high quality work, rapidly, efficiently and safely, the company has been working with National Pile Croppers (NPC), which has supplied Quad L and QXL pile croppers and round the clock support for the project.
The ongoing redevelopment of a heavy-duty industrial facility in Sheffield is part of a contract valued at £138 million, which will support construction of a 13,800m2 building. VINCI Building will deliver the project to provide foundations, a 40 metre high superstructure and building service solutions for the facility, alongside teams of subcontractors and supply chain partners.
Due to the structure of the building, with its high load bearing walls and superstructure, secant piles were initially chosen due to their ability to be constructed and form excavations in areas of high-water table. They are also able to be high load carrying whilst suffering from less vibration during construction. These were cropped by VINCI Building using a NPC monster cropper, the QXXL, which proved ideal for dealing with the 1,050mm piles.
Next stage and more cropping
The initial cropping of the secant piles was undertaken using a NPC Quad XXL, which has been designed and developed to deal with piles of between 1,050mm and 1,200m. “The development of the Quad XXL has proved to be the ideal tool for this project. It has the size to get over the 1,050mm piles and reduce them effectively. It is the only piece of kit capable of fitting in between the primary/secondary piles that have a range of 1,050mm – 1,200mm. Piles of this size often come oversized generally at the top,” explains NPC company director Scott Fitchett. This work was undertaken by VINCI Building working in conjunction with NPC.
The pile cropping of the other non-secant tiles is being undertaken by sub-contractor, Barnsley headquartered Cidon Construction, which is a specialist reinforced concrete contractor with over 20 years’ experience in the delivery of complex concrete structures. For dealing with the smaller 600mm to 750mm bearing piles until the end of Jan 2026 an NPC QL was used. Following on from that, and for cropping the larger 750mm to 950mm piles, an NPC QXL will be used.
Quad designed to be productive
All three members of the NPC Quad family work in a similar fashion. The cropper is lowered over the top of the pile to recommended height – on ‘de-bonded’ piles this could be 500mm or more. The jaws are closed until a pile section pops free, with the reinforcement bars being kept straight for ease of removal, with the broken pile section easily lifted to dumper or an identified safe area. The Quad family uses four powerful and fully synchronised rams with specially designed blades to give a superb pile cut. Best utilised on piles with ‘debonded’ reinforcement bars, the Quad design gives it a very small footprint to enable access into tight spaces.
“The Quad family has certainly delivered on the Sheffield project. Both VINCI Building and Cidon Construction have been impressed with the performance. It’s been a pleasure to work with both companies on what has proved to be a demanding project,” concludes Scott Fitchett.
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