Gentle Giant

A waterjet process cleans concrete mixer truck drums safely and with much less risk of damage to the tanks
Gentle Giant
The Ready Jet can remove a full yard of dead concrete – approximately two tons – from a drum in 60 to 70 minutes, saving clients time and money.

Interested in Waterblasting?

Get Waterblasting articles, news and videos right in your inbox! Sign up now.

Waterblasting + Get Alerts

Dead concrete is breathing new business life into S & S Waterblasting. A cleaning system robotically removes dried concrete from mixer-truck drums faster than jackhammer-equipped workers, and keeps them safer.

Owner Gordon Short says his company, based in Corydon, Ind., bought a Ready Jet machine from Blasters Ready Jet in February 2010 after research revealed a potential niche market for automated concrete mixer-drum cleaning service. The company provides industrial cleaning for tanks, condensers and process lines at chemical plants and was looking to diversify.

 

Staying safe

There are more than 50 concrete plants within 100 miles of Corydon, and Short believed eliminating confined-space entry from the drum cleaning process would appeal to plant operators.

“It’s dangerous using jackhammers to clean out the dead concrete,” Short says. “You can be chipping off concrete on the bottom, and if a 100-pound chunk breaks off the top and falls, you can imagine the kind of serious injury. Plus, the jackhammers can dent the mixer drum. There’s less chance of damaging a truck with the jet.”

In addition, a robotic cleaner helps minimize workers’ exposure to silica dust, which can cause a lung disease called silicosis. In fact, tests show that the Ready Jet produces no detectable amounts of silica.

On average, a mixer truck holds 13 cubic yards of concrete and needs cleaning every four or five months. The concrete plants have an interest in cleaning the drums regularly because carrying too much buildup decreases gas mileage.

“The magic number for cleaning is about a yard of concrete, which is around 4,000 pounds,” Short says. “By the time you do all the things OSHA requires to work inside the mixer in a safe manner, it usually takes a couple of hours for guys to go inside and jackhammer concrete out.

“With the jet, it takes us about 60 to 70 minutes to knock out a yard of concrete. And since there’s less downtime, customers can get a truck cleaned and still make runs the same day. In the long run, they save a bunch of money.”

 

Remote control

Mounted on a twin-axle gooseneck flatbed trailer, the Ready Jet has an oscillating jetter that produces up to 20,000 psi/26 gpm. A 325 hp John Deere diesel engine and an L450 Gardner Denver pump power the system. The machine weighs about 16,200 pounds and measures 8 feet wide, 11 feet, 7 inches high, and 33 feet long.

“It’s a pretty big piece of equipment, so there’s not a whole lot of room for a water tank. We set ours up with the water tank mounted on the back,” Short says.

The operator stands on a platform and uses a remote-controlled, telescoping extension boom to clean from a safe distance. As the drum rotates as slowly as possible, a hydraulically operated jetter tip mounted on the side of the boom rocks back and forth, making a full pass through the mixer every two to three seconds.

When cleaning is completed, the waste concrete can be dumped wherever the plant operators prefer. Most plants use concrete crushers to recycle the dead concrete.

 

Making the case

In marketing, Short’s biggest obstacle is convincing customers that a waterjet can cut through concrete. A demonstration usually seals the deal, or he brings a laptop computer and shows videos of the machine at work. “The machine has been pretty valuable because it opened a new market,” Short says. “We have one customer in Ohio with 24 trucks. It takes us four days to clean all of them.

“The machine has exceeded my expectations. I knew it could cut concrete, but I was surprised to see just how fast it does it.”



Discussion

Comments on this site are submitted by users and are not endorsed by nor do they reflect the views or opinions of COLE Publishing, Inc. Comments are moderated before being posted.