Nurock Mixers, Britain’s only specialist volumetric concrete mixer manufacturer, has announced that its highly innovative NUVM 1.5 compact volumetric machine will be available from March 2010 in the UK and worldwide through selected dealers.
A pre-production prototype attracted huge interest when it was exclusively revealed in April 2009 at Intermat, one of the world’s biggest international construction equipment exhibitions, held in Paris, France, every three years.
The NUVM 1.5 effortlessly mixes 1m³ of concrete in under three minutes using a unique combination of hoppers and hydraulic system. It can also produce screed, mortar or process recycled aggregates with a constant production rate at any cement content.
"Most competitive mixers of this size and capacity are just scaled-down derivations of larger machines," says Graham Jones, Managing Director of Merseyside-based Nurock. "This purpose-designed machine uniquely incorporates all the compartments for sand, stone and cement in one main hopper, rather than the customary two, and stores water underneath the hopper, helping to reduce its overall footprint by around 25 per cent.
"Not only does this modular construction reduce initial product cost, its easy removability – the hopper can be quickly replaced or removed – further simplifies maintenance and access."
By replacing the chains, sprockets and other mechanical components that usually make up the mixing technology with a hydraulic arrangement, a much quicker production rate is possible with less maintenance and servicing.
"Fewer working parts with less complexity ultimately means less downtime and lower servicing costs," adds Jones. "Lower maintenance cycles and ease of use were purposely built in at the design stage to help us target various new markets including the hire industry as well as traditional concrete supply companies and owner/operators.
"Being innovative and flexible is working for us, and as a result we are getting more business even in this difficult economic climate. We are always looking to help our customers be more successful, and this new machine will enable a volumetric mixer to get into sites and applications where a traditional machine is too large, reducing costs for those looking to start up a new business or bolting onto existing operations.
"It’s a value proposition and delivers all the benefits in one compact package, offering improved utilisation along with an excellent return on investment," he concludes.
Technical Details
The patented NUVM 1.5’s hydraulic system provides both productivity and efficiency benefits. Output is always at a constant speed, no matter what cement content or strength of concrete is required, meaning that the bottlenecks created when using mechanical versions are now a thing of the past.
Forming part of a robust and accurate system, an optional onboard computer holds up to 50 preset mix designs and, with additional memory, is able to store the user’s individual ’recipes’. Once the mixer has delivered accordingly, it records the ingredients used, producing a printout for accountability purposes.
Highly flexible, the NUVM 1.5 is available in three different versions. It is ideal as a static unit for smaller, precast applications, perfect as a trailer-mounted model that can be towed to remote locations or building sites and reloaded, and invaluable when mounted on a 7.5t truck for use in urban areas where access is a problem for larger mixers, or the delivery of small loads is required.
Just like bigger volumetric concrete mixers, this compact model is effectively a mobile batching plant. It carries all the unmixed ingredients in separate compartments before mixing the exact required quantity on site, thereby providing cost and environmental benefits through the reduction of waste. The mix design can be changed on site for any requirement, including pigmented, admixtures, fibre-enhanced and foamed concrete.
Because the concrete is mixed fresh every time, volumetric mixers are particularly suitable for applications requiring specialist and recycled concretes, where there is intermittent demand, or in urban areas where congestion issues may lead to a reduction in the quality of premixed concrete. Because hydration or segmentation does not occur during transit, they are also ideal for use in remote locations and hot climates.
