In the light of present growth of infrastructure, demand and application of concrete are found to be enjoying phenomenal growth. Pouring of concrete in large quantities is in great demand for construction work particularly in flyovers, bridges, high ways, residential buildings, multiplexes, and similar projects. In view of stringent project time schedule and casting requirement of a huge quantity, manual concrete mixing and pouring has become obsolete. As a consequence, continuous mixing and pumping technology are being adopted in all big construction activities recently.
Different Types Of Concrete Pumping:
Concrete pumping is carried out by means of a concrete pump which is a machine used for transferring concrete prepared as a semisolid material by a special type of positive displacement pumps. There are basically two kinds of concrete pumps.
- The first one is mounted on a truck or semi-trailer type longer transport truck. It is called boom concrete pump. The reason of naming it as boom concrete pump as it applies a remote-controlled actuating rooting arm technically named as a boom to pour concrete uniformly and correctly. Boom concrete pumps are used in most of the huge construction projects like fly over, airport, metro rail track supporting concrete structure and many other larges civil construction projects.
- The second alternative pumps are commonly termed as line concrete pumping where concrete pumps are mounted on a trailer or truck, and trailer mounted concrete pump. This kind of pump needs steel or flexible rubber hose for the purpose of concrete conveying and pouring. Steel or flexible hoses are attached to the delivery outlet of the pump. The delivery hoses are connected one after another in a leak-proof way for transferring and pouring of concrete exactly at the desired place. Line type of concrete pump is generally having lower volumetric discharge capacity compared to boom concrete pump and they are mostly used in a small projects like swimming pools, sidewalks, and residential construction
Skid mounted or rail mounted concrete pumps are also used for concrete pumping. But such cases are rare and only applicable for specialized construction like tunnels and mine sites.
The Technology Of Concrete Pumping
Design of concrete pump is a highly challengeable task because concrete has heavy or high pulp density, higher viscosity, abrasiveness and presence of hard stone chips and gets solidified in delivery line if not operated or get move continuously. Usually, piston pump design is adopted in such cases as they are capable to produce more than a hundred atmospheric delivery pressures. Such type of concrete pumping machines of piston type is capable to push cylinders of a heterogeneous concrete mix comprising cement, lime, aggregate etc. The value of such pumps is the critical component and generally, transfer tube valves are mostly used. Seat valve is also found wide application. The pumping system has self-supported power supply system by soundless DG set.
Transportability Of Concrete Pumping Machinery
The entire pumping machinery comprising a concrete pump, delivery hoses, and pipes are foldable and easily transferable from one construction site to other conveniently. The continuous concrete mixer is also mounted on a separate truck along with the DG set.
Examples Of Concrete Pumping Performance
- Vertical reach boom of the delivery head at 42 m
- Horizontal type of boom delivery head of about 38 m
- Pump capacity: 30 cum per hour
- Concrete delivery pressure generated at 11,200 kPa
- Length of cylinder: up to 2100 mm each
- Cylinder diameter 210 mm
- Number of delivery stroke per minute 27-30
- Number of outrigger legs: 4 to 6
Concrete pumping technology has been proven and a boon to the construction activities for the projects requiring high concrete pouring and casting capability.