Evolution of Rock Breakers!

A rockbreaker is a machine designed to manipulate large rocks, including reducing large rocks into smaller rocks. They are typically used in the mining industry to remove oversize rocks that are too large or too hard to be reduced in size by a crusher. Equipment Times looks into the origin of this breaker equipment, its ancient roots and today’s modern technology.

History of rock breaking….

From ancient times onwards, all great civilizations dazzled the descendants with tremendous construction projects that did not make real without unfree labour. Throughout history, mankind have created many great Architectural masterpieces, some of the most ancient ones are known as Wonders of the World (the Great Pyramid of Giza, Hanging Gardens, Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, Statue of Zeus in Olympia, Mausoleum in Halicarnassus, Colossus of Rhodes, Lighthouse of Alexandria) and others, which have been built at present times, (Taj Mahal, Eifel Tower, Sydney Opera House, Statue of Christ the Redeemer etc.) that are also considered as Modern Wonders of the World by some scholars. Nevertheless, none of these masterpieces could have been raised without construction materials, mined in pits and mines from time immemorial.

Mining can be considered as economic fundamental of human activity. Any developed country pays much attention to this aspect for the state of mining industry and amount of mineral resources production define power and wealth of a country. Development of earlier civilizations started with and was accompanied by exploration, excavation and production of specific materials. For this purpose ancient Egyptians used war prisoners, who worked in pits, dug hundreds of kilometers of irrigation channels and other (Meyers and Shanley, 1990; Agrawal, 2010). Agatharchides, a Greek historian and geographer of 2nd century B.C., who visited Egyptian goldmines and gave a very precise description of everything he saw there, also provided a description of Egyptian mining method for vein gold and quartz rock. Although the original text was lost and never found, his mines description was preserved by another Greek historian Diodorus who quoted it. Egyptian method was as follows: rock was first cracked and broken with fire, then the debris were crushed with pick axes and hammers. After that, rock fragments were taken out of mine and pounded in huge stone mortars to the size of a pea, then grinded into powder in hand mills. This powder was later washed on inclined planes to separate metal grains. The grains were melted and run into small in gots afterwards (Lucas,1958). The main mining centre of ancient Greece was Lavrio, where about 490 year B.C. achievements in mining encouraged Athens to turn into a naval power and strengthen the City States’s defense power in war against Persia. This increase in extraction of minerals was due to vast amount of slaves. Later, many of them managed to escape during Peloponessian War in 413, and then the restoration of Lavrion deposit in 4thcentury B.C. was hard and took a long time(Electronic resource: History of Ancient World).Development of mining engineering in Macedonia, commenced about 350 B.C. in mines near Philipp, resulted in dramatic drop of ore mining in Greece in3rdcentury B.C. Things were worsen by the fact that thin copper ore beds near Corinth and Euboea were exhausted long time ago. The primary and most widespread way of mining was laying many narrow adits (1.5×2 metres) with short subsurface drifts. Special narrow air drifts 50×50 cm size was made for ventilation. Ore excavation was manual and slave labour predominated (Electronic resource: History of Ancient World).In ancient Rome, a 6-kilometre adit was built to discharge water from Turchino lake. The drainage was carried by two counter headways having 40 vertical and 70 inclined shafts, dug along the adit axis(Apostol,2004). In 6th century B.C. on the island of Samos in Greece 1036 metre long Evpalinos Tunnel was built with simple hammers, pickaxes and chisels. At that time, Samos was under the reign of Polycrates. During his rule two teams of workers under tenure of engineer, Evpalinos dug a tunnel under Mount Castro which transported fresh water for ancient Samos capital Pythagoreo. This tunnel also served a defense purpose, because an underground aqueduct was not easily found by enemy and cut. Archeological survey showed that Evpalinos Tunnel had been used for a thousand years, and it was the second known tunnel built from both ends.

Looking Back At Invention Of The Hydraulic Breaker!

50 years ago, the first hydraulic breaker was manufactured. However who can claim that they have manufactured the first in history? There are two sides to this story as Atlas Copco and Montabert are two firms that claim they developed the first hydraulic breaker. It is important to note that the concept believed to be pioneered by both firms has been taken up by many throughout the years, making the industry as big as it is today!

In 1967, Krupp Berco Bautechnik, the business that developed the hydraulic breaker range (which was bought by Atlas Copco) showed their rig-mounted hydraulic breaker HM 400 at the Hannover Fair. After much interest was shown in the breaker, 2,000 units were sold. Not to be outdone by Krupp Berco Bautechnik, Montebert also attracted strong sales with their breakers around this time. Early hydraulic hammers were shown to have many shortcomings. For one, it wasn’t always feasible for a hydraulic breaker to be in constant contact with the rock it was designed to break. Due to this shortcoming, early-stage hydraulic breakers were prone to failure.

As more firms joined the market, including Indeco, NPK and Rammer, boundaries were pushed in the late 1980s as enormous 11 ton units were created. However, only a small amount of units were manufactured because technology for hydraulic seals was not yet readily available. Also introduced in the 1980s was Rammer’s G120 breaker, showcasing the viability of large hammers.

These units, along with others, have increasingly become popular as science and technology helps the industry evolve for construction and quarrying markets.

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