Fig. 104.—Tie for Wall Forms.
Fig. 105.—Tie for Wall Forms.
MIXING AND PLACING CONCRETE.—Where a long stretch of wall is to be built the system of mixing and handling the concrete must be capable of being shifted along the work. For isolated walls of short length this problem is a simpler one. Where the mixer can be installed on the bank above, wheeling to chutes reaching down to the work is the best solution. As shown in Chapter IV concrete can be successfully and economically chuted to place to a greater extent than most contractors realize. Where the mixer has to be installed at the foot of the wall wheelbarrow inclines, derricks, gallows frames, etc., suggest themselves as means of handling the concrete. It is not this class of work, however, but the long stretches of heavy section walls such as occur in depressed or elevated railway work in cities that call for thought in the arrangement and selection of mixing and handling plant.
In building the many miles of retaining wall in the work of doing away with grade crossings in Chicago, Ill., trains made up of a mixer car and several material cars have been used. The mixer is mounted on a flat car set at the head of the train and is covered by a decking carrying two charging hoppers set above the mixer. The material cars are arranged behind, the sand and stone or gravel being in gondola cars. Portable brackets hooked to the sides of the gondola cars carry runways for wheelbarrows. Sand and stone or gravel are wheeled to the charging hoppers, the work being continuous since one hopper is being filled while the other is being discharged into the mixer. The mixer discharges either into a chute, wheelbarrows or buckets. The foregoing is the general arrangement; it is modified in special instances, as is mentioned further on. The chief objection to the method is the difficulty of loading the wheelbarrows standing on runways level with the tops of the gondola sides. The lift from the bottom of the car is excessive, and as pointed out previously, shoveling stone or gravel by digging into it from the top is a difficult task.
The delivery of the concrete into the forms was accomplished by chute where possible, otherwise by wheelbarrows or cranes, and in one case by belt conveyor. In the last instance the mixer car was equipped with a Drake continuous mixer and was set in front. Behind it came three or four gondola cars of sand and stone, and at the rear end a box car of cement. All material was wheeled on side runways to two charging hoppers over the mixer. The mixer discharged onto a belt conveyor carried by a 25-ft. boom guyed to an A-frame on the car and pivoted at the car end to swing 180° by means of a tag line. The outer end of the conveyor was swung over the forms. A ¾-in. wire rope wrapped eight times around two drums on the mixer car and passing through slots in the floor to anchors placed one 500 ft. in front and one 500 ft. to the rear enabled the train to be moved back and forth along the work. This scheme of self-propulsion saved the hire of a locomotive. In another case the mixer was discharged into buckets which were handled by a crane traveling back and forth along a track laid on two flat cars.
Fig. 106.—Side Elevation of Traveling Mixer Plant, Galveston Sea Wall.
Another type of movable mixer plant used in constructing a sea-wall some 3½ miles long at Galveston, Tex., is shown by Figs. 106 and 107. Two of these machines mixed and placed some 127,000 cu. yds. of concrete, in 1 cu. yd. batches. Two 12-HP. engines operated the derricks and one 16-HP. engine operated the Smith mixer; all engines took steam from a 50-HP. boiler. The rated capacity of each machine was 300 to 350 cu. yds. per day. The method of operation is clearly indicated by the drawings.
