The majority of concrete pumps in construction sites are reciprocating piston pumps. However, their maintenance cost is high and the discharging capacity is low. Squeeze concrete pumps have been popular because they pump continuously and their mainten...
The majority of concrete pumps in construction sites are reciprocating piston pumps. However, their maintenance cost is high and the discharging capacity is low. Squeeze concrete pumps have been popular because they pump continuously and their maintenance is easy. The objective of this study was to develop a squeeze concrete pump for domestic production and evaluate its performance through the experiments. A squeeze concrete pump was designed and ANSYS, one of FEM (Finite Element Method) softwares, was used to analyze stress and strain on the pump structure. The performance evaluation was carried out by measuring the volume flow rates of cement mixtures in varying pump speed. The maximum induced stress at 1,800 rpm was 147.8 MPa which is less than the allowable stress of the structural steel (250 MPa). Since the safe factor is 1.7, the design is safe based on strength. The maximum deformation (0.17811mm) was so low that it has less chances of failure of pump impeller. The volume flow rate was proportional to the pump’s rotational speed, and the maximum volume flow rate was 13.4 m3/h at the highest rotational speed (1750 rpm). The pumpability test was performed against two different samples: a water and cement mixture and a water only. Both volume flow rates in terms of the rotational speed were not significantly different, because their specific gravities were very close (1.2 at water and cement mixture and 1.0 at water only). A performance curve from the squeeze pump developed in this study was comparable to the ones from a commercial pump made by Bredel, Netherlands. These results would be invaluable information in developing a better performing squeeze concrete pump.