Atlas Copco has commissioned the first HB 10,000 hydraulic breaker – the world’s largest commercially available hydraulic breaker – in the Middle East and North Africa region with the Eastern Province Cement Company (EPCC) in Dammam, Saudi Arabia.
Weighing at 10 tonnes, the HB 10,000 is capable of delivering blows with 16,000 joules of impact energy – equivalent to a weight of 760 tonnes, or the landing pressure of an Airbus A380 airplane – at a rate of 380 strikes a minute.
The HB 10,000 breaker will be used in a primary breaking application on the hard limestone deposits arranged in a dam formation in the quarry. The site not only presents harsh conditions but alos extreme temperatures, with ambient temperatures of up to 51°C.
Explaining the choice, Shafeek Ahmed, mine superintendent at EPCC choose the HB 10,000, said: “We are facing very hard rock, which lowers traditional dozer productivity [compared with a hydraulic breaker] in this type of deposit and achieves a lower cost per tonne.”
The lower weight and higher efficiency of the HB 10,000 make for a high power-to-weight ratio and a lower hydraulic input requirement from the carrier for the same performance, while an in-built energy recovery feature adds to the model’s overall cost-effectiveness.
Powered by a combination of oil and gas, the HB 10,000 is also virtually independent from the carrier’s hydraulic oil supply, resulting in 70% of the impact energy being regenerated by the gas in the piston accumulator and only 30% coming from by the hydraulic oil supply of the carrier.
This lower hydraulic input allows for the use of smaller carriers, potentially yielding significant savings in investment costs, and lowers the fuel usage. The HB 10,000 can run on excavators ranging from 85 to 140 tonnes.
“The HB 10,000 provides an ideal solution for EPCC’s primary quarrying application,” noted Fiaz Ghani, regional business line manager for Atlas Copco Construction Tools.
“The combination of extreme power and efficiency provided by the breaker gives real operational savings, making it an unrivalled cost-effective production machine for primary rock breaking.”
