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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."
Why do I think labor groups will be unhappy about this?
Peace and love, y'all
Man, construction unions are unstoppable.
In Soviet Russia, all our base are belong to you!
Can someone direct one of these to SCO Headquarters?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
"How about a splash of water on this hot summer day?"
"YayyyyAAIIIEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!"
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Mrs. Everitt said the hydrodemolition robot helps the DOT because it removes faulty concrete but leaves good concrete behind.
So it's a robot that plays God then? I cast you, bad concrete, into the abys from where you shall never return!
Just as long as it doesn't start running wild and judging humans, or there might be a significant oversupply of liquified lawyers.
Beep beep.
I saw a report a few years ago about the advantages of using a high-pressure water 'gun' for cutting metal. Some of the advantages was that the cooling was already taken care of, the material was recyclable with a filter, and the edges were already smoothed.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Road-tested hydro-cleaning power from Georgia is coming straight from the street to your dentist's office! Call 1-800-OWW-SHIT for details!
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
What do we do with the poeple who are replced with automation?
The normal response is there will be 15 people working for the company that makes the automated product, but thats not true.
If I created a device that flips burgers, and cost less then maintaining a staff, people will buy it, and it will replaces millions of workes, far more then it would take to build the things.
I'm not saying we shouldn't automate, I'm just asking what do we do as our jobs per person keeps declining?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Last decade, in Washington State, hydrodemolition was used to "resurface" the Eastbound lanes of the Lake Washington Floating Bridge, a couple of miles from the Western end of Interstate 90.
Due to a chain of snafus, the "floating" bridge sunk one Thanksgiving day. Very nearly sunk the brand new Westbound floating bridge right next to it. (Part of the root cause was the storage of hydrodemolition wastewater in the flotation cells of the bridge.)
Some years later, the records of liability were sealed in a court settlement between the state and the contractor.
Yeah. In Las Vegas, for example, you aren't allowed to recreate more than one ocean per casino. Any more would just be wasteful.
When I was 17 I worked construction back up in the NW. In union terms, 'about two' translates roughly, in human terms, to 15 laborers, 4 foremen, 7 union representatives, and 3 strippers (to be brought on site for birthdays, mondays, tuesdays, etc.)
To give you context, compare that to the software world, where 'about two' translates to just you, 4 weeks out of the 20 week projection, a pissed off laptop, and a boss that lives and dies by metrics.
--
mcp.kaaos
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
I was astounded by the fact that the newspaper's picture has details about the robot. The picture describes the robot as having a water PUMP that brings water to the robot. It's ingenious. Finally, a method by which we can transfer water. I mean I would have thought that maybe a Cadre of Trained Monkeys would have brought water little by little to the robot, but NO, a pump has now replaced their job. Its pure genius. Finally, a newspaper that publishes that facts that we want to know about and NEED to know about. I'm subscribing to this one!
I can se it now, a house is on fire. they turn on the pump, and 10 seconds later the house is a big pile of soggy wood..in the neighbors yard.
;)
but at least the fire would be out.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If they could figure out a way to use the old concrete with the waste water to immediatly make new concrete it would be like a Zamboni for the highway.
Perhaps I am one of the few Civil Engineers who find myself reading /. So +karma to the editors for bringing this article.
I still would like to know how it removes the concret and doesn't dammage the rebar. When you start getting aligator cracking in concrete roads, water has more than likely reached the rebar, rusting it.
Some newer road specs require that the rebar be coated with epoxy. This cuts down on rust, and may allow for rebar reuse in the case stated with the article.
--C. Alan, PE
Alright, I'm sure someone has the answer to this... what makes this thing a 'robot' as opposed to say... just a big fscking tool?
I mean, it still takes to people to operate it, so it's by no means autonomous.
As0k
Self improvement is masturbation... therefore masturbation is self improvement...*zip*
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.