The growth of the concrete construction equipment segment is led by growing customer preference for high capacity and technologically advanced concreting requirements. Moreover, factors such as the increasing number of construction projects, shorter completion time, and demand for customized solutions by end-users are further fuelling the growth of this segment. The advances in technologies in concrete equipment have also been prompted by the need to enhance efficiency and reduction in environmental emissions, which impacted heavily on engine designs. New engineered equipment designs have achieved much more performance and functions than would have been conceived a decade ago. With time there will be a further development of features in concrete equipment and manufacturers are willing to invest in R&D as they want more customized equipment as per end-user concreting requirements. With good quality concrete construction equipment, a construction company can get quality construction work done in a lesser amount of time. It can, therefore, cut down on its labor costs and increase profits by giving quality construction services to its clients in a faster way. With the advancement in technologies, today several concrete construction equipment are available in the market. Discussed below are different types of concrete equipment used across projects in India.
Concrete batching plant
A concrete batching plant combines various ingredients to form concrete. Some of the ingredients used include water, air, admixtures, sand, aggregate (rocks, gravel, etc.), fly ash, silica fume, slag, and cement. It can have a variety of parts and accessories, including: mixers (either tilt drum or horizontal or in some cases both), cement batchers, aggregate batchers, conveyors, radial stackers, aggregate bins, cement bins, heaters, chillers, cement silos, batch plant controls, and dust collectors. These various ingredients are mixed in different ratios depending on the final model of the concrete which the company needs. The concrete plant has many important components which include the cement and aggregate batchers, aggregate bins, conveyors, mixers, heaters, cement silos, control panels and dust collectors. The efficiency of the batching plant is more important to get a high-quality and durable concrete.
Different types of concrete batching plants;
Mobile concrete batching plant
Modern mobile plants come with a stable main chassis allowing extreme durability, safe transportation, continuous long-life operation and sensitive weighing by minimizing the vibrations to the scales. All the equipment necessary for the operation of the batch plant is installed on the main chassis and is being transported on it. Water buffer tank, water pump, additive tank and additive pumps along with air compressor come preinstalled on the main chassis.
Stationary concrete batching plant
Stationary Plants are often composed of huge twin shaft mixers that are designed to work at full capability, efficiency and reliability for a variety of large-scale and high-quality concrete production. Stationary concrete production equipment is built to offer maximum rated production capacity and long work hours. The new models are furnished mainly with twin shaft mixers for maximized capacity, the plants are also available with Planetary mixers and batch sizes could be modified.
Transit/ Dry mix concrete batching plant
Dry concrete batching plants have sand, gravel, and cement feeding to batching plants that pass the numerical or manual scale. Modern-day dry mix concrete plant consists of the cement silos, feeding system, control system, weighing system and mixing system.
Wet mix Concrete Batching Plant
Wet mix batch concrete plant is easy to transport and install due to its portable movement. Wet mix concrete batching plants can be classified into two knis: stationary type wet concrete plant and mobile type wet mix concrete batch plant.
Concrete mixer
Concrete mixers used at the construction sites are the mechanical devices that homogeneously combine cement, sand, gravel and water to form a fine concrete mixture. These help in delivery of ready-to-pour concrete to the construction jobs where large pour volumes are required. Different types of concrete mixers are used at the construction sites. Modern concrete mixer model is composed of a motor, a rotating tank, a dump wheel or tipping handle (on the side) that allows the tank to be tilted and a rigid frame. The tank is equipped with fixed helical blades that mix the materials to obtain a homogeneous mixture. The motor can be electric, combustion or, less frequently, hydraulic.
Concrete mixers can be divided into two broad categories Batch Mixer and Continuous Mixer. Continuous mixers are used in massive construction sites such as, for construction of dams, bridges, etc., which involves the use of large masses of concrete and also requires continuous flow of concrete. Batch mixer is one of the most common types of mixer and it is widely used to mix the concrete ingredients. It consists of a revolving drum with blades or baffles fitted within it. In this type of mixer, all the materials of the desired proportion are mixed and fed into the hopper of the revolving drum.
Concrete pumps
Concrete pump is used for transferring liquid concrete by pumping at construction sites. Concrete pumps help in placing concrete faster and more accurately with less labour than any other method. By employing on-site concrete pumps, one does not have to allocate any personnel for placing of concrete at construction sites. This will be handled by a concrete pump. Concrete pump can be a truck mounted or trailer mounted concrete pump. Both of them provide flexibility on a job site allowing the constructors to have easy access to areas that are not accessible without a pump. So, for faster concrete placing work at construction sites, concrete pumps are the best devices to be employed.
There are mainly two types of concrete pumps, line pumps and boom concrete pumps. The line pump is mounted on a truck and placed on a trailer. Line pumps normally pump concrete at lower volumes than boom pumps and are used for smaller volume concrete placing applications such as swimming pools, sidewalks, and single-family home concrete slabs and most ground slabs. The second type is boom concrete pumps. These pumps are attached to a truck and use a remote-controlled articulating robotic arm. They are mostly used on big construction sites and pump at very high volumes. With the addition of equipment and technology under these two divisions several subdivision categories of concrete pumps have developed namely, mobile stationary pump, Truck Mounted Static Pump, Truck Mixer Concrete Pump and many more.
Concrete pavers
Concrete pavers are used for slipform paving streets, bridge work, parking lots, airport runways, curbs and gutters, irrigation ditches and golf cart paths to name a few. Whatever the application or type of paver used, these machines have the capabilities to pave projects with speed and precision while maintaining a focus on performance and quality. Specialized concrete pavers for construction markets need to be versatile, consistent and safe. The size, range and type of paver are as important as the consistency in the mix, smoothness, rideability and ease of transportability.
Modern-age concrete paver machines come with built-in electrical or hydraulic vibrators that ensure homogeneous compaction of the concrete. The inset mold forms the concrete surface to the specified thickness and width while the slipform paver travels forward. Concrete pavers comprises electrical & hydraulic types. In addition, a dowel bar inserter can be added which inserts the dowel bars into the concrete as specified parallel to the paver’s direction of travel. Central tie bars or side tie bars can be inserted perpendicular to the road surface. Concrete pavers encompass a range of types, including form-riding paving machines, curb-and-gutter machines, and slipform machines.
Concrete transit mixer
A concrete transit mixer is used for transporting concrete/ mortar or ready mix material from a concrete batching plant directly to the site where it is to be utilized. The transit mixer is loaded with dry material and water. The interior of the transit drum is fitted with a spiral blade. Spiral blade is able to move in two directions. During clockwise movement the drum is charged with concrete and in counterclockwise direction concrete discharges out from the transit drum. Concrete mixing drum ensures the liquid state of materials through rotation of the drum about its own axis. Transit mixer is utilized for many projects. It delivers concrete for construction of airports, multistory building, dams, highways, bridges, factories etc. It has various parts named as hopper, discharge chute, rotating mixing drum and a water tank. Hopper is that part through which the transit mixer is charged with concrete.
Modern-day transit mixers are designed with special metallurgy of the drum which is designed for high degrees of wear resistance due to special alloying elements which make it more wear-resistant. There are additional features, such as precision of rpm control, noise levels and fuel consumption, and reduced maintenance costs, which are available in both electric and hydraulic versions of transit mixers. The modern-day machine’s special design also includes a transit drum with a spiral blade.
Concrete boom placer
A Concrete boom placer uses a remote-controlled articulating robotic arm (called a boom) to place concrete accurately. Concrete boom placers cover a range of horizontal and vertical reaches with placing booms. Boom placer is very important equipment for high-rise projects because pumping the concrete through vertical pumps is limited to a certain uplift capacity. The vertical pump is connected with the static pump. When the concrete is pushed, it travels throughout the boom placer and at the top, there is a 360-degree rotation wherein one can displace the concrete all around.
The new generation equipment range covers numerous applications starting with the small, versatile concrete pump and ending with the concrete pump that has the highest reach and best manoeuvrability. By combining modern design elements such as finite element analysis and structural optimization, modern Concrete Boom Placers have a more intelligent structure, lighter weight, and longer service life.
Conclusion
With the production needs, especially the rapid development, the use of the concrete equipment construction industry has changed. Nowadays, manufacturers of concrete construction equipment incorporate the latest technology to eliminate raw material storage space and raw material wastage. Moreover, factors such as the increasing number of construction projects, shorter completion time, and the demand for customized solutions by end-users are further fuelling the growth of this segment.
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