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 the quality construction services to its clients in a faster way. With advancement in technologies, today a number of concrete construction equipment are available in the market. For every construction site, there exists a diverse range of construction machinery for faster, easier and safer constructions. Today, several manufacturers are supplying high-quality concrete construction equipment. It is pivotal to choose the equipment that renders more feasibility for your construction project.
Given below are different types of concrete equipment used in construction.
Concrete batching plant
A concrete batching plant is a machine in which ingredients of concrete are mixed and blended homogeneously to obtain concrete of desired strength and quality. Concrete batching plants can be classified as stationary concrete batching plants and mobile concrete batching plants, based on the location of the plant.
Mobile batching plants can be used wet or dry and has a wide array of configurations and production types including Ready Mix, Precast & Prestressed, Central Mix, and RCC. Mobile Concrete Batching plant models are now fully automatic. The towing arrangement in the plant facilitates it to be towed by tractor or equivalent power. The new plant models comprise adequate capacity gravel & sand hoppers, weighing conveyor suspended on electronic load cells, reversible drum type mixer unit, cement bin with screw conveyor, rubber belt type charging conveyor, cement batcher, PLC based control panel. Modern mobile plants consisting of portable shaft mixers are designed to be moveable and thus are installed on a towable chassis with wheels for maximum mobility and quick setup. The compact design boosts the production capacity and fits in thin plot sizes. The new concrete batching plants at your job site, the plant can be fully erected and operational in less than four hours. All components are on board and the entire plant is pre-wired and plumbed for air and water. All plants tested at our factory to ensure trouble-free start-up and operation.
Stationary concrete batching has seen an upsurging rise in demand and manufacturers are modifying new models based on the customer need. The new models are furnished mainly with twin shaft mixers for maximised capacity, the plants are also available with Planetary mixers and batch sizes could be modified. The Stationary Plants are available in various capacities ranging from 30 m3 to 240 m3 per hour of compacted concrete output. In the current Stationary concrete plants, the aggregates are stored in horizontal bins. The gathering conveyor belt runs below the bins where the weighing of aggregates takes place and the aggregates are then discharged onto the charging conveyor. Pneumatically operated gates are provided for discharge of the aggregate on to the gathering conveyor. The material is all weighed accurately and transferred to the twin shaft mixer through a slinger conveyor. The new batching plants also come with the Skip Hoist and Belt arrangement option for mixer loading and a modular PLC-based control system with real-time SCADA for control and data management, The news design models can adopt Ice dosing, Microsilica dosing and some special additives very easily. An Admixture Dosing Unit and a standard Cement Screw Conveyor are also a part of the standard offering. Special plant designs are available for dam construction and precast manufacturers.
Concrete mixers
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.
Modern batch mixers come with a ribbon or paddle agitator. The mix is held in constant suspension providing for excellent uniform mix of the product. Paddle assemblies mix using a tumbling motion and have less product shearing during the process. Batch mixers are ideal for a wide variety of applications, especially where production quantities are small, strict control of mix composition is required, formulations change regularly or batch traceability is necessary.
Continuous mixers provide a more economical alternation for big capacity to meet process requirements. The modern continuous mixer can handle up to 5 different materials at one time, mixing powders with another powder, powder with a liquid or several liquids together to create a homogeneous product free of any agglomerates or lumps. he weighing, loading, mixing and discharge steps take place simultaneously and continuously in a continuous mixing system. This allows for lower mixing times, consistent mixing performance (no batch-to-batch variation), decreased energy usage and automatic control. All blenders, mixers and agitators can now be custom built to efficiently and cost-effectively meet each application requirement.
Concrete pump
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.
Modern stationary pumps come with the appropriate delivery line and the stationary placing boom system. The new updated models come with a high-pressure pump that caters to concrete pumping to 80~100m building heights. The models are equipped with the latest S-valve technology and with highly wear-resistant steel components.
Modern truck-mounted concrete pumps cover a range of horizontal and vertical reaches with placing booms between 20 and 63m in length. The new product range covers numerous applications starting with the small, versatile concrete pump and ending with the concrete pump that has the highest reach and best maneuverability. The machines can take high delivery pressures up to 130 bars for delivery outputs of up to 200m³/h. The new series machines come with mounted on a truck chassis of your choice. It is also possible to customise your setup to include storage for all your pipework and other accessories so you’ve always got everything you need in the one mobile package.
Truck mixer concrete pumps combine a truck mixer, a concrete pump and a placing boom all in one package are ideal for supplying especially small construction sites with concrete in a quick, simple and cost-efficient way. Truck-mixer concrete pumps are ideal for supplying especially small construction sites with concrete in a simple and cost-efficient way. With the 1000 mm long-stroke pumping unit, these machines need fewer strokes with the result of reduced wear and lower fuel consumption. Also, these machines can easily reach delivery rates of more than 60 m³/h.
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. Modern concrete equipment adheres to maximise technology for a better result.
There are several types of construction equipment, we have focused on three important types, in the upcoming article that is part 2, we will cover other important concrete construction equipment.
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