The history of a concrete pump (or a pumpcrete machine) appearance
Scientists still cannot say exactly who invented concrete several millennia ago. In the same way, the invention of the concrete pump, equipment for transferring a freshly prepared mixture over long distances directly to the concreting site, is shrouded in mystery. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were several attempts to create such devices that greatly facilitate and speed up monolithic construction. As now, concrete pumping plants were needed in the construction of roads, bridges, large and small infrastructure facilities. Some sources claim that the first concrete pump was assembled in 1907 in Germany. However, the most famous “discoverers” were the German engineers Fritz Hell and Max Giese in 1927, who were prompted by the idea of using a concrete tower on the site. They decided to supply the solution to the site directly from the concrete mixer. The concrete pump developed design made it possible to pump a mixture with a lower water content and a high content of large fractions (gravel, crushed stone), which made pouring cheaper, shortened the concrete hardening time, and therefore accelerated construction. The first experiments led to the creation of concrete equipment that pumped solutions at a distance of 38 m (vertically) and 120 m (horizontally).
In 1959, the German company “Schwing” (more precisely, Friedrich Schwing, its founder) made a real breakthrough, because the equipment presented by the company constructive principle is still used by all the concrete pumping plants manufacturers. We are talking about the release of the world’s first with two cylinders oil-hydraulic concrete pump (or a pumpcrete machine). Already in 1962, Friedrich Schwing patented the “S-pipe”, which is found today in almost all the latest generation concrete pumps.