Ahh..now this is a bit more like it. Ever wondered how you get fresh concrete up to great heights in construction sites? Well they use a concrete pump like this smart unit which has just entered service with Bristol-based ready mixed concrete and concrete pump supplier, Wright Minimix. The 6x4 Renault Premium Lander 320.26 is fitted with a truck-mounted Sermac concrete boom pump and is the first concrete pump to be mounted on a Premium Lander chassis in the UK. All bodywork was undertaken in Italy by the wonderfully-named Ultranazz.
It works by backing up a mixer up to the back end of the pump unit which has a hopper. If BLB understands it correctly, the concrete is poured from the mixer into the hopper where a piston pushes it into the pipe gradually filling it with concrete until it pops out at the other end. Clever eh?
Meanwhile, here's a bird's-eye-view of the pump in action--(I think the bird is a Kestrel)
The good people at Wright Minimix have clearly taken to the French marque as they've got another Renault Premium Lander 320.26 rear steer mixer on order, which will be its first Renault mixer to be fitted with weighing equipment too. Vive le Concrete!
BLB: Agree it is all very clever, but surely the really clever bit has got to be emptying the big long tube of wet concrete after the last lot of the mixer's load has been pushed into the lower end of the pipe by the piston? Any rocket scientists out there?
Regards
Bill Taylor