The imposing concrete mixer that hauls alongside your vehicle on a city or rural street can be imposing and intimidating. There is a history to how concrete mixing equipment came to be a major player in the field of concrete mixing and how much industrial society depends on this concrete mixing equipment to help produce one of the sturdiest surfaces on earth. We walk on concrete every day without giving a thought to the equipment and process that churns the concrete mix all over the world.
Past history of concrete mixing equipment notes that Stephen Stepanian developed the first motorized transit mixer in the year 1916 and applied for a patent for his creation during that year. His invention arrived not a moment too soon for it was meant to replace the antique horse-drawn concrete mixer being used at that period in history. It must have been a difficult load for a horse to draw.
A wooden paddle was used to churn the concrete mixture as the cart wheels turned on the period mixing equipment. It was an awkward and tedious process. As time passed, engines and truck frames were designed to accommodate rugged concrete mixing equipment that haul heavy wet concrete over long stretches of road. After World II ended, the building industry boom increased all over the country, and mixer trucks arrived on the scene.
Have you ever wondered why the concrete mixture equipment continues to turn over while it is driving? Well, the concrete mix must be continuously turned over to avoid setting of the mixture. The driver of the mixer truck has a time limit to arrive at a construction site, and the concrete must still be mixing to enable usage when it arrives at its destination.
The drum mixers that roll past while perched on transport trucks today resemble Stepanian's patented vision of what concrete haulers would look like down the road. A larger motor rotates the drum on current-day transport trucks, which are outfitted with several blades and screws that enable the motor to rotate the drum on the truck. This rotation maintains the aggregate, cement and water mix that is in constant motion and prevents the concrete from setting before the truck reaches its construction site destination.
Cement manufacturers allot a 90-minute period between the equipment's mixing and pouring of concrete mix process, but they also give preference to changing that time period to 60 minutes. The question begs though of what happens when the truck with the mixing equipment and its churning contents get stuck in city and other road traffic for longer than anticipated periods. A hairier scene is what happens if the truck has a mechanical breakdown in traffic.
There is a sensible answer to concrete mix trucks that may get stuck in traffic. Technology has changed and so has the mixer designs as well. Traditional mixers bear rotating drums and mostly head immediately to roadside sites where the concrete is immediately emptied.
A new kind of concrete mixer is the latest concrete mixing equipment on the scene today. These mixers are designed with a separate water tank in the truck. The rotating drum mixes dry ingredients and cement in totality during a road trip. Within a few miles of the destination site, water is added to create a fresh batch of concrete for delivery.
That is a pretty cool maneuver and strategy that is referred to as batch delivery. The batch delivery now extends itself in yet another form wherein batch delivery is set up to prepare dry mixing ingredients in the concrete mixers offsite and delivers the batched ingredients directly to a concrete jobsite where water mixing is engaged.
The History And Evolution Of Concrete Mixing Equipment That Benefits The Concrete Industry
