Get FinancingAtlas Copco: A Century Of Drilling (And Then Some)
Atlas Copco AB has long been a world leader in the manufacture of surface and mining drills and drill rigs. It’s also famous for its air compressors, pneumatic tools, and many other types of industrial equipment, both under its own name and that of brands it has acquired worldwide.
The company was founded nearly a century and a half ago in Stockholm, Sweden, to serve the expanding railway system. It’s had various names over the years, including AB Atlas (1873 to 1890), Nya AB Atlas (1890 to 1917), and AB Atlas Diesel (1917 to 1956).
Early Drills
Focusing on compressed air power after the railway business faltered, in 1898 Atlas made its first pneumatic drill. It followed up in 1905 with the Cyklop and Rex light rock drills, which were hand-powered.
The lightweight BOB, a ratchet-rotating model for limestone and other porous rock, followed in 1913. Atlas then bested competitors’ more complex, less reliable designs with its BR series drills in 1915. These had four-cylinder pneumatic motors with single-acting cylinders.
The BOB’s replacement appeared in 1930 as the RH-70, designed by engineer Gustaf Andersson. It was a lightweight, handheld drill designed for hard rock. But just two years later, Atlas created an RH series drill that was to make the company famous: the RH-65. With the additions of a pusher leg, which pressed the drill bit into the rock, and more durable, hardened metal in the bits, the RH-65 would later help Atlas expand its customer base to other countries.
In 1936, Atlas added compressed air power to a pusher leg for a new, one-man rock drill that garnered much praise. That same year, the company developed its first “down-the-hole” drill, in which the drilling machine itself enters the hole in the rock face.
Even better drill bits appeared from fellow Swedish manufacturer Sandvik. Its alloy steel bits, tipped with hard tungsten carbide, could drill 50 to 200 feet into hard rock before needing to be sharpened. Atlas wisely added Sandvik bits to its rock drills starting in 1945.
The Swedish Method
After World War II, in order to crack the French market, salesman Erik Johnsson had to convince buyers that Atlas’s drilling system with its pusher leg and carbide bits was superior to cheap continental alternatives. On a sales trip to a French coal mine, the buyers didn’t understand what Johnsson and his companion were talking about, so they sent them on to talk to their technicians instead. When the French technicians were convinced that this new, light “Swedish Method” was better than their domestic, American, or German alternatives, Atlas’s drilling business started to take off. In order to start selling drills and bits as a bundled solution, Atlas cannily acquired sole rights to Sandvik’s drill bits and the steel they were made of in a 1947 agreement.
Inspired by this success, Atlas started to send out teams of drill masters and engineers around the globe to give drilling demonstrations. They not only showed international mining customers what the Swedish Method of drilling could do, but also how to use it in a time- and money-saving way. Soon after, Atlas began to set up shop in those countries to demonstrate commitment to supplying and supporting their customers’ drilling projects.
Atlas first established a presence in the U.S. in 1950. It also introduced a coal mining drill called the RH-754, which gained the company much market share. Atlas’s BUK 21 K became its first underground mobile drilling rig in 1952.
By the late 1950s, the company (now called Atlas Copco) started to recognize that heavy, mechanized drilling rigs were starting to edge out their one-man, Swedish Method drills as labor demanded higher wages and better working conditions. Having neglected the heavier segment for the most part, the company modernized its factories and renewed its focus on research and development.
In 1960, Atlas came up with MLD (Mechanized Long-hole Drilling) with its Simba 22 underground production drill rig. Crawler drills appeared in 1963, and Atlas’s first full face boring rig followed in 1968. The company also came into possession of tunnel drilling rig patents and manufacturing rights from the Swiss firm Habegger AG.
The Rise of Hydraulic Drills
As the 1960s ended and the 1970s began, Atlas finally began to turn from its pneumatic origins to the hydraulic future. Oil pressure was more efficient than air pressure for powering drills, enabling higher drilling capacity and 50% more penetration. Hydraulic drills were also quieter and didn’t fill the air in the mine with oil and water vapor, both things the workers appreciated.
For Atlas’s 1973 centennial, it debuted its first hydraulic rock drill. The percussive COP 1038, with its low energy and maintenance costs, became the forerunner to many modern rock drills today. Used underground and on the surface, the COP 1038 could run bits from 1.4 to 5 inches (35mm to 127mm) in diameter. By 1995, Atlas doubled its drilling rates with a shock dampening system and called the result the COP 1838.
Decades of acquisitions followed. In the early 1990s, Atlas purchased the companies that made Secoroc drill steels and Craelius diamond drill bits. Later buys included South African Professional Diamond Drilling Equipment and Shenyang Rock Drilling Machinery (2003), Ingersoll-Rand Drilling Solutions (2004), and H&F Drilling Supplies (2010). By late 2012, Atlas Copco owned companies in 90 countries.
On the technological front, the firm patented its cost-efficient, fast, and accurate COPROD system for large hole drilling. It also started to add remote monitoring and control to its drill rigs in the late 1990s. Things quieted down in 2005 with a new, nearly silent surface drill rig for round-the-clock construction.
Today’s Lineup
At present, Atlas Copco sells new surface and mining drill rigs under the Epiroc brand. Its range of down-the-hole, tophammer, and COPROD surface drill rigs include automated SmartROCs, versatile FlexiROCs, and stout PowerROCs, along with the pneumatic AirROC series. Altogether, EpiROC surface drills can bore holes from 0.9 to 8.5 inches (23 to 216 millimeters) in diameter. Applications include construction, quarrying, mining, aggregate and limestone quarrying, and civil engineering.
The company also sells drilling rigs for tunneling, sinking wells, and tapping oil and gas, as well as for mineral exploration, long-hole production applications, rotary blast hole drilling, and more.
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