Crushing on site provides lower cost, greater efficiency and a more sensitive environmental treatment.
Environmental constraints such as noise, increased truck movements and the high cost of depositing materials in landfill have forced construction contractors to look for solutions. Limited site access, tight timelines and other associated costs are an incentive to deploy less equipment on a construction site and may result in faster, more efficient processes.
The cost of removal and dumping apparently unusable excavated spoil or demolition waste is an expensive, yet potentially avoidable cost. Investment by a contractor in an appropriate specification bucket crusher attachment for on-site reprocessing often makes a clear and compelling business case.
Crusher and screening buckets attached to excavators and other earthmoving equipment allow materials to be processed for reuse, right where they are being extracted. Crushed by-products may be either used as on-site aggregates or profitably on-sold to other sites.
Italian engineering has consistently exhibited skills in developing earthmoving solutions, due in part to experience with the hard composition of their native nock; a dominance of heritage listed construction sites, narrow roads in many areas and environmental vigilance of EU regulators.
MB Crushers has developed site and task-specific bucket configurations designed to tackle common scenarios such as the separation of non-crushable steel reinforcement or structural materials, dust suppression, noise reduction and maintenance minimisation in this aggressive mechanical environment.
RESIDENTIAL REDEVELOPMENTS
Crusher buckets have been delivering productivity benefits for many Australian contractors and building companies. For example, Sydney’s Statewide Demolition & Civil Works specialises in demolition work for many of the country’s large residential project builders, acquiring their first MB crusher in 2007 for use with 20 and 22-tonne excavators.
The company’s Kevin Hood said the use of their MB crusher had enabled them to overcome several material handling challenges.
One cited example is a plant nursery site where a mobile crusher had been set up to recycle concrete slabs. They found that steel reinforcement material kept getting jammed in the crusher and this prevented the feed from being offloaded from the belts.
A solution was found by attaching their MB crusher to an excavator so the steel reinforcement dropped straight out of the bucket. Three dump bins of crushed reinforcement bar were quickly and easily removed from the site in this manner.
While regular scheduled lubrication of the crusher bucket is needed to ensure trouble-free operation, when crusher plates need replacement, changeover is straightforward, taking around just 30 minutes either on site or in the workshop.
APPLICATIONS
Common applications for crusher buckets include demolition, residential building, industrial structures, pipeline excavations, railway track ballast, soil and fill mixes for large scale commercial and infrastructure landscaping. Crusher buckets have been shown to overcome challenges where it may be difficult to bring in large equipment.
Constrained spaces, difficult access, steep slopes, congested CBD areas or infill developments in urban areas can also present unplanned, time-disruptive challenges.
Quarries and other extractive industries often operate on multiple levels, linked by internal road systems. Agile equipment such as excavators fitted with crusher buckets are often deployed for crushing tasks as required.
For road construction, you can crush the material and reuse it directly on site as road base, drainage filling and trench filling. In pipework, crushing gives the option to directly reuse recovered materials for road base and construction and maintenance of sewers or pipelines, drainage filling and trench filling, limiting the purchase of new material and reducing transportation cost.
Models are available from MB that have accessories to improve performance and productivity and include a quick coupler, iron separator and dust suppressor.
NEW SERIES 4 BF60.1
Suitable for heavy equipment from 8 tonnes and upwards, a new design allows for more agile movement and increased crushing speed. Parts that are subject to high stress have been reinforced and further options have been added for better regulation by widening the size range of crushed material. There is also a new greasing system that makes onsite maintenance simpler and faster.
The MB-C50 is the smallest crusher bucket in the MB product line, weighing less than 1 tonne and designed to work on excavators starting from 4 tonnes. It is suitable for mini excavators and great for small crushing jobs.
Due to its reduced size and weight, the MB-C50 has proven to be particularly useful in landscaping and restricted areas, ensuring high performance in small size with a production rate of up to 10 cubic metres per hour. For 14 tonne machines, the BF70.2 S4 bucket is a handy and compact attachment due to its combination of high performance, reduced size and manageable weight.
THE BIG BUCKET
MB’s BF 150.10 is the largest crusher bucket in the world. Designed for excavators exceeding 70 tonnes it’s ideal for applications in quarry, mining and general crushing on large job sites.
Weighing over 10 tonnes and with a load capacity of 230 cubic metres, the BF 150.10 crusher bucket is capable of crushing material production of more than 120 cubic metres per hour. With an industry-leading bucket opening of 1450 x 700mm and an output adjustment from 100 to 200mm, this machinery is essential for primary crushing in quarries and large-scale operations.
[colored_box color=”yellow”]For further information on the range of MB Crushers, call Semco on 1800 685 525, or visit www.semcogroup.com.au[/colored_box]