Tag Archives: knock down

How to knock down a bridge with an excavator

It is not necessary that we need a dozer to knock down a huge structure but can be done with the help of heavy equipment which is considered to be a multi-task machine. There is not much heavy equipment that can do multi-tasking. For instance, a grader can be used for only grading purpose and if you try to do something more from it, it may not give you the same performance that you can get from the heavy equipment which is meant to do that sort of work. Same goes with other heavy equipment as they are built to do a particular kind of work but there are few machines that can multi-task real well and an excavator certainly falls in that bucket. Today, an excavator is not only used for digging work but is also used for other wide range of activities and one of them is to knock down a heavy structure.

These days’ excavators are being used to knock down bridges. It may sound to be a strange idea but has been applied by many contractors who work only on excavators. Though the same kind of job can also be done by using a dozer, yet contractors who have been using excavators do not want to switch over to any other equipment. Since they know that their machine can be equipped with attachments that can get almost any work done, they prefer changing the attachments and not their heavy equipment. Excavators are good in digging work and in order to bring down a bridge, it is first important to weaken its foundation and then you can hit hard on the surface to break it down completely.

So the first thing that the operator does is it starts working on the foundation of the bridge. It erodes the ground making the foundation weaker and then once you can see the base of the foundation, all you have to do it hit the surface of the bridge with a wrecking ball/crusher/hammer and bring it down. After bringing down the surface of the bridge, the next important part will be the pillars of the bridge. Since the foundation of the pillars has already been weakened, it will not be a difficult task to bring that down. All you have to do is use the wrecking ball and hit the pillars hard and it will come down like a pack of cards. Knocking down a bridge may take some time to complete. Eroding the foundation is what takes most of the time or else simply knocking it down is not a difficult process.

While doing this part of the job, the people involved on the ground should be very careful because any wrong step can prove to be lethal. It is just the excavator and the operator controlling the machine should be allowed to be there near the site. Rest all should be away but having a close watch at the developments. In case of any accident they should be ready to jump in and help the operator get out of the mess.

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