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Hydrodemolition Robot Crushes With Water
Roland Piquepaille writes "In 'Robot pummels roads with water', the Augusta Chronicle says that a hydrodemolition robot is going to restore seven bridges in Georgia. "It's a robot that destroys everything in its path with a crushing stream of water 15 times more powerful than a jackhammer. The robot looks like a street cleaner machine on steroids and is expected to begin use August 1 to resurface seven bridges on Gordon Highway from Walton Way to the bridge at the South Carolina state line." This kind of robot needs only two workers to operate it, instead of 15 workers for a jackhammer, is less noisy and more gentle for the foundations. You'll find more details in this summary."
Does it recycle the water?
Yep:
"The water is not left behind.
"Once the thing gets the water down and pulverized the concrete, workers come behind it with a vacuum truck," Mr. Merritt said. The water is then taken to a treatment site."
the blood has stopped pumping, and he's left to decay
the me that you know is now made up of wires
Having been on a crew that used one of these exact machines, it is indeed potable water.
The magic is that it uses 35,000 - 50,000 psi and through a very tiny (.035", IIRC) nozzle. Very low flow, 20 gpm or so.
Actually, only about half of the water remains to be reclaimed - after the trip through the nozzle and all of the friction with the concrete & rebar, about 1/2 is lost as steam. helluva thing to watch.
As for the '15 men' comparison, here's my first-hand experience:
We used men with jackhamers to remove the first two inches of concrete (down to the rebar)
Crew:
(1) operating engineer - man the air compressor. He's frickin' useless.
(1) laborer foreman - push the men, repair the extra jackhammers, rotate into the crew
(5) laborers - constantly on the hammers. (unless too many broke down. We had seven hammers, and about 5 runing.)
The robot is used to remove concrete _under_ rebar. The rebar comes out looking sandblasted - bare white metal. That's the trick that would take 15 men with jackhammers. The crew there was a robot operator and a guy at the pump. Actually, the laborer crew was cheaper than the robot.
Also, the other thing these things do real well is scarification - roughen up the surface before you put down a top coat. The other good way to do it is with sandblasting, definately nastier than hydroblasting and worse results to boot.
Basically these things rock.
I think I need a new sig here.
As the article stated, it runs along on it's own after being programmed with directions. I would assume the 2 operators are there for the programming and monitoring.