Capital Equipment News December 2020

The non-silenced GC hammer is built to handle high productivity applications.

A Cat hammer deployed to break rock in a quarrying application.

a substantially more comfortable environment for the operator. “Blank firing protection is key to ensuring the piston will not cycle after the tool penetrates the material,” explains Gilles Ronnet, demolition product application specialist, EAME region at Caterpillar. This, he says, reduces internal stresses and protects the assets, both the hammer and the carrier. “This feature lowers owning and operating costs and is operator friendly.” Ronnet says Caterpillar is developing different combined technologies for both machines and hammers. Caterpillar has integrated a hammer auto-stop function in the Next Generation machines, which alerts the operator of blank firing after 15 seconds, and automatically stops the hammer after 30 seconds if the operator doesn’t stop hammering, as per good practice. The new safety feature protects both the hammer and the machine and reduces drastically customers’ maintenance costs. “The auto shut off feature instantly stops the piston when breaking through material. It prevents blank firing, which is a top cause of hammer wear. Internal stresses are reduced, providing more productive hours of work. The hammer is protected, regardless of operator skill level,” he says. More innovations Another technological advancement of note is the energy recovery valve, which

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Blank-firing protection is designed to minimise wear and tear that the hammer faces

The energy recovery valve is designed to increase the striking power of the hammer by transferring recoil energy to the tool’s next blow

Speed control offers increased productivity and minimises backflow of harmful energy to the excavator

Caterpillar offers several hammer line-ups with product deliverables satisfying different customer requirements with different technologies

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