Concrete mixers which also go by the name of cement mixers are a type of machinery that combines cement, water, and aggregates like gravel or sand to develop concrete. The typical concrete mixers use revolving drums that mix all the components together. For volumes of work that are smaller, the portable cement or concrete mixer is a popular alternative, allowing concrete to be made on the site of construction, allowing the workers more than enough time to use the product before it starts to harden and set.
– Concrete Mixer Transport Trucks
The in-transit mixers, better known as concrete transport trucks are designed to transport and mix the concrete. These vehicles are loaded with water and dry materials, and the mixing occurs during transport. They are also often loaded from central-mix plants, which means the materials are already combined before loading.
These trucks typically weigh 20,000 to 30,000 pounds and can accommodate around 40,000 pounds of concrete. There are many different mixer truck sizes, but the most common of the concrete mixer machine capacities is 8 cubic yards.
– Concrete Mixer Trailers
Another alternative used to transport concrete includes the cement or concrete mixing trailer. These are smaller versions of the transit-mix trucks and are used for supplying shorter concrete loads. These trailers have concrete mixture machine with capacities of around 1 to 1.75 cubic yards. A cart-away is typically pulled behind the pick-up truck, as well as batched from a smaller batching system. These mixing trailer systems are very popular with building-material locations and rental yards that use these systems to provide ready-mix products to their customer base.
– Portable And On-Site Concrete Mixers
For the smaller projects such as domestic or residential renovations, repairs, or hobbyist-scale projects, concrete is only required in much smaller batches. Cement, packaged in bags are made available in smaller batch sizes, while water and aggregate are easy to buy in smaller quantities for the smaller work sites. To accommodate this smaller-batch concrete market, many people turn to portable and small concrete mixers.
– Self-Loading Concrete Mixers
A self-loading concrete mixer is a unique machine made to mix, batch, and to transport concrete. They are usually made up of rotating drums attached to a cab-mounted operator-driven chassis frame that comes with its own “loading” bucket. The operators of these self-loading concrete mixers will batch and introduce the ingredients that are required to produce concrete into a drum with the use of a loading bucket. These drums are typically reversible, tilt, or combinations of both.
A set amount of water will discharge into the drum through a water-dispensing unit. The drum then rotates the mixture until the final product is discharged through the fitted chute.
The self-loading concrete mixers are best suited to the construction sites where a concrete batching plant is not available or there is no space to accomodate the plant. The applications include rural and urban construction projects, tunnel and bridge construction, pavement (concrete) maintenance, township-level highway construction, construction of railways, and so much more.