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Baroque Bloke |
A new high rise building is being constructed near my home. Yesterday I saw a large concrete slab being formed. A large mobile machine had long boom with four hinged segments, about 40’ long in total, carrying a 3 or 4 inch flexible tube. Concrete mix trucks backed up to it and dumped concrete to it via a metal chute. Then, somehow, the concrete was pumped through the flexible tube and discharged to the slab area. But how the heck can concrete, with gravel in it, I assume, be pumped? At mid span the hinged boom was about 10’ high. Maybe an impeller type pump? Serious about crackers | ||
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safe & sound |
Piston pumps. | |||
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Nosce te ipsum |
There is a cool animation of a concrete pump on this UK webpage. http://www.schwing-stetter.co....PumpingOverview.aspx Basically, it is a powerful pump that pumps a non-solid material like many pumps. A vacuum is a pump of sorts, and moves solids. Most of the pumps I come into contact with establish suction through a spinning impeller. | |||
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teacher of history |
With a lot of horse power. | |||
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| Smarter than the average bear |
What I got out of this thread: Q: How can they pump concrete? A: With a concrete pump. | |||
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| Member |
they are building a new bridge across the Mississippi river , here, you should see the booms those pumps have ! Safety, Situational Awareness and proficiency. Neck Ties, Hats and ammo brass, Never ,ever touch'em w/o asking first | |||
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Member |
Vacuum pumps won't do this job. It is well beyond their limit. Impeller-type pumps PUSH the concrete. There is no such thing as "suction"; just difference in air pressures. | |||
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| Blinded by the Sun  |
Super P is an additive, super plasticizer adds work ability to concrete, also most pump mixes are small pea gravel sized aggregates. ------------------------------ Smart is not something you are but something you get. Chi Chi, get the yayo | |||
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| Paddle your own canoe  |
Wow, a concrete thread in which anyone is yet to call it "cement". There IS a difference.  | |||
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| Member |
I have help pore enough concrete to know I'd rather be doing something else. Out biggest pours were a pair of slabs for a grocery store we built in 1974. 60 feet wide and 160 feet long, each. The basement slab was no problem, the truck could just back in... for the suspended upper level floor it was all trucked in via wheelbarrows. Sure could have used one of those pumps but we got-'er-dun. So now a Sigforum post is responsible for sending me down yet another Youtube rabbit hole...  .Collecting dust. | |||
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| Member |
I use to drive a concrete truck part time to pay the kids tuition. The most important thing with these pumpers is to not let the hopper go dry. We used to back up after waiting in line, lower the chute and dump the load as fast as you can. We usually had two trucks at the hopper so one was constantly filling the hopper up. | |||
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| Baroque Bloke |
^^^^^^^^ Indeed, there were two trucks at the hopper. It sounds as though an impeller was the pump type. Thanks guys. Serious about crackers | |||
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| Lawyers, Guns and Money  |
Schwing! "Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." -- Justice Janice Rogers Brown "The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth." -rduckwor | |||
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| Muzzle flash aficionado  |
Exactly. A "suction" pump cannot achieve more than 14.7 psi pressure, even at ground level, because that is atmospheric pressure there. A "pressure" pump can exert whatever pressure it was designed for, even thousands of psi if that is called for. flashguy Texan by choice, not accident of birth | |||
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| Member |
PISTON pumps. As in a piston in a cylinder, moving back and forth. The Schwing illustration has two cylinders, alternating strokes, powered by hydraulic cylinders. It appears the hopper gravity feeds the cylinders. As heavy as concrete is, any other pump would likely not be enough. Higher speed impellers would be useless, pistons push the thick liquid up the pipe, then in the next stroke more concrete is pushed up behind the first. | |||
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| Baroque Bloke |
CUT: “Smarter than the average bear” Hm… Serious about crackers | |||
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| Member |
They don't just use these pumps on big projects. They're building a 2200 sq ft home beside mine and they used a crane and pump to pour the footings. No more wheelbarrows picking it up from the truck and being rolled to where they need it. | |||
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Member |
What's most interesting to me is how these pumps have a "swing pipe" that alternates between two parallel pistons. Im assuming this is to manage the large aggregate found in concrete, check valves would not be appropriate in this instance. I'm somewhat familiar with frac/cement pumps. They are essentially beefed up power washing pumps that handle water/Slurry. Their valves and packings get changed regualry since they handle so much abrasive material. A group of 16 of those pumps can move 3000 gallons of sand laced water per minute at 10k psi without much trouble. | |||
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| Member |
Right. Piston pumps. What fascinated me once was watching concrete being pumped in temperature well below freezing during a snowstorm at Lake Louise. Hard to see from the hotel, snowing so hard. Looked like the column forms were wrapped in thermal blankets. The workers didn't bat an eye; poured forms all day. | |||
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| Member |
I worked at a commercial food processing plant and we used very similar pumps, albeit much shorter stroke, to pump cake frosting. They are very powerful and driven by hydraulic cylinders. Obviously the seals etc. were of food grade materials. They were much higher maintenance than the other gear type pumps we used but did not damage the particulates (nuts or candy chips) in the base frosting. The “POLICE" Their job Is To Save Your Ass, Not Kiss It The muzzle end of a .45 pretty much says "go away" in any language - Clint Smith | |||
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