How Does a Concrete Pump Truck Work

Working Principle of the Concrete Pump Truck

The pump truck uses the roller to squeeze the rubber pipe when the roller is rolling so that the rubber pipe has the ability to suck and output the concrete, so as to achieve the purpose of transportation. The structural diagram of the concrete pump truck is shown as the following picture:

  1. Shell
  2. Roller Carrier
  3. Supporting Roller
  4. Rubber Roller
  5. Hose
  6. Vacuum Suction Port
  7. Elastic Cushion
  8. Drive Shaft

The drive shaft drives the roller carrier and three rubber rollers to rotate, and squashes the hose constantly at the same time. The vacuum suction port is connected with the vacuum pump. When the pump truck is working, the vacuum pump sucks the air out continuously, causing the formation of the negative pressure in the pump body.

And the role of the supporting roller is to get the hose squashed back into shape quickly, facilitating the performance of absorbing concrete.

If the pump shown above is set up onto the chassis of a car, added to placing boom, frame, landing leg, hopper and water washing device, which can form assemble a concrete pump truck.

In addition to driving the pump truck, the engine of the concrete pump truck also uses the power of the automobile engine to drive all working devices during the operation, so it can make full use of the automobile power.

However, some concrete pump trucks are not easy to make use of the engine power of the automobile, or the driving power required by large and super large boom (such as the pump truck of semi-trailer) is very large, and the automobile engine cannot meet the requirements, this moment the automobile engine is equipped with another engine to drive the special working device.

The pumping device is a piston concrete pump, which uses the hydraulic cylinder to drive the concrete cylinder piston to move back and forth, and completes the suction and discharge of concrete in cooperation with the hopper and distribution valve, further to achieve the purpose of transportation.

The distribution device is of boom type, which can transport and pour concrete in a certain range of vertical and horizontal directions, reduce extra workers and labor intensity, improve construction efficiency, make concrete pouring uniform, flat and dense, and promote concrete pouring quality.

The Main Structure of the Concrete Pump Truck

The concrete distribution pump truck consists of the chassis of a truck, the concrete pump, the mixer, screen filter, distribution device, distribution valve and landing leg. The structural drawing of the concrete pump truck is shown as the following picture:

  1. Folding Placing Boom
  2. Flowing Concrete
  3. Concrete Pump
  4. Swinging Distribution Valve
  5. Feed Box, Mixer and Screen Filter
  6. Specialized Truck Chassis

The Concrete Distribution Valve

The concrete distribution valve is the key part of concrete pump truck, which should meet these requirements such as stable pumping and rapid switching, effective sealing to prevent concrete from overflowing, small suction resistance and other functional requirements.

  • 1,9-The Concrete Cylinder
  • 2,7-Shutter
  • 3-Blocked Feed Port
  • 4-Open Discharge Port
  • 5-Delivery Pipeline
  • 6-Blocked Discharge Port
  • 8-Open Feed Port

The Concrete Placing Boom

a-Z-Shaped Folding

b-Rolling Folding

c-The Mixture of Z-shaped and Rolling Folding

The concrete placing boom is a rotatable, elastic and folding boom and conveying pipe for conveying concrete materials within a certain range.

The commonly used boom has 3, 4 or 5 sections. It can be folded hydraulically and is generally made into a box shaped boom structure. According to the different folding methods, it can be generally divided into roll folding and Z-shaped folding or the hybrid of the two folding methods.

For the rolling folding type, each section of rod is rolled from the outside to the inside. On the contrary, for the Z-shaped folding, each rod is folded or overlapped with each other like the English scale, which can limit its extension space to within 5m height to meet the requirements of tunnel construction or building construction. The extension time of Z-shaped folding is about 5min, and the folding time is about 8min.