Transportation and Handling of Concrete
Once the concrete is ready on the site or it reaches to the site by trucks and loaders. The labor transport it to the working site where concreting is carried out. The transport the concrete using one of the following ways:
- Mortar pan
- Wheel barrow
- Chutes
- Dumpers
- Bucket and ropeway
- Belt conveyor
- Pumping
- Cranes
The pictures to the left of this section two ways of concrete transportation. Concrete on site needs to be handled and transported carefully, without any wastage. The quality of concrete should not be disturbed with any of the activity. Depending on the extent of construction the type of concrete transporting mechanism is selected.
For example, for small-scale jobs concrete is transported using mortar pan, buggies and wheelbarrows. These ways are slow and labor-intensive. When the concrete is to be placed at an inaccessible location, then belt conveyor, truck mounted conveyor, cranes, buckets attached to sometimes helicopters. These are used for medium to large scale construction projects, where a large volume of concrete is required. These methods are effective and fast. In case of marine construction, transportation and handling is carried through ferries.
Pumps are the most used concrete distributing techniques (9). The is an effective and economical way of delivery concrete. There are different types of pumps available, i.e. truck-mounted, trailer etc. The concrete pumps are mobile so concrete can be provided easily. A typical pump can provide concrete to a place anywhere in the radius of 30 m or more.
Secondly, pump has a flexible hose at the end of the rigid pipeline, that provides constant supply of concrete and it gives ease to the workers in concrete pouring. After the pouring of concrete different instruments are used for the spreading of the concrete over the surface.
Manual spreading by workers would be carried out in a small scale construction site but in large scale construction different machines are used to spread the concrete, like screw spreaders. There are many benefits of using pumps, such as, quick and even spreading of concrete, high and constant output and less labor intensive. They are used prior to the usage of vibrators.
