Articulating concrete boom pumps

One of the main characteristics that makes concrete a great construction material is that it remains a liquid after mixing all its components until it cures to become a solid. The fact that concrete is a liquid mixture allows it to be transported through pressurized piping, like how water moves throughout a city. Pumping concrete means that it can be mixed and held in a different location than where it will be finally placed. Over the last 100 years, concrete pumping technology has advanced to accelerate the concrete placement process and push the boundaries of the scale and accessibility of concrete projects.

Before the development of concrete pumping technology, concrete was mixed on site and transported to the placement location by hand. This required not only a significant amount of time and hard labor, but also it required that individuals walk through a construction site with either wheelbarrows or buckets to transport the concrete. This meant that nearly every aspect of the construction site needed to be walkable, requiring the leveling of a site and continual placement of pathways. This method limited the type of construction that was possible and caused concrete placement to be a relatively slow and expensive process.

According to Wikipedia, concrete pumping emerged in 1927 when German engineers Max Giese and Fritz Hull first began to experiment with pumping concrete through pipes. In a short time, they were able to pump concrete a distance of 390 ft and a height of 125 ft.  The first concrete pump was finally patented in 1932, beginning a new era in concrete construction. The first articulating boom pump, a machine that allows the pump to swivel and apply concrete across a wider area, was introduced in 1953 in Portland, Oregon.

With the ability to pump the concrete across distances, the mixers could be farther from the placement location. This meant that the mixers could be larger. It also meant that the concrete no longer needed to be moved by hand to the placement location, allowing construction sites a great deal more flexibility in their layout. Most importantly, it made concrete construction quicker and cheaper. Modern articulated boom pumps are designed for many situations and can pump concrete extremely long distances, over a mile if necessary. They allow for concrete to be poured precisely and consistently throughout a job site, which has quickly made the articulating boom pump one of the technologies that the development of modern cities relies on.

Conco’s mission is to be the best supplier of concrete services in the Western United States and to bring expertise, experience, and quality of each project. We continue to upgrade and expand facilities to better serve the growing market for commercial, educational, public works, and parking structure projects as well as other construction development. Please call or email for more information on how Conco can assist your next project with Confoam™, our cost-saving cellular concrete.