This news article was originally written in Spanish. It has been automatically translated for your convenience. Reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate translation, however, no automated translation is perfect nor is it intended to replace a human translator. The original article in Spanish can be viewed at Los martillos de Atlas Copco trabajan bajo el agua en la demolición de presas del río Cuyahoga en Ohio

Special works

The hammers of Atlas Copco work under the water in the demolition of preys of the river Cuyahoga in Ohio

Editorial Interempresas10/04/2014

The final stages to give back the ancient splendour pre-industrial to the river Cuyahoga in Ohio, that was very contaminated, included the elimination of the preys Sheraton Mill and LeFever that previously supplied hydroelectric power for the pujantes local industries. RiverReach Construction, specialists in projects of environingingmental catering of brooks and humedales, executed the tasks of fast demolition and effectively with the help of hydraulics hammers of Atlas Copco instrumented with kits for underwater works.

RiverReach Construction Of Norton, Ohio, requested quality consultancy to the company Columbus Equipment Company, a distributor authorised of Atlas Copco. The company instrumented to RiverReach with hammers HB 3100 of Atlas Copco for heavy works and a much more compact hammer, the SB 552. It used the compressesor XAS 185 of Atlas Copco for the supply of air compressesed and prevent the entrance of water in the mechanisms of percussion of the hammers.

Excavator instrumented with hammer HB 3100 of Atlas Copco.

The demolition of the preys carried out under the steering of Greg Guello, one of the bosses of RiverReach. The first prey, Sheraton Mill, had 12 metres of length and three metres of height. By his location, the works had to begin from the high part of the river. The solution of Guello was to mount in a gabarra modulate the hammer SB 552 with a miniexcavadora, like machine bearer, to plant the just hammer behind the prey.

Really simple

The operario Shannon Swaino began to use the SB 552 to open ‘hollow' and leave that the water flowed downstream. The level of the water behind the prey began to diminish gradually. To continuation, Swaino accessed to the river with the powerful hammer HB 3100 connected to an excavator of 36 tonnes and the prey was demolida in an alone day. “It was a really simple task with this so big hammer”, explained Swaino.

Now was the turn of demoler the prey LeFever of 27,4 metres of long and almost 4 metres of high, that retained a volume of water notably higher. RiverReach Could build an access to the river so that Swaino could approximate from the low part of the river, by what did not have to use again the gabarra and the work could complete quickly.

Comeback of fast of long white waters unseen times

The elimination of the preys left to the discovered the waterfalls and fast of white waters of the river Cuyahoga, that carried one hundred unseen years in sight of the residents, by what enjoyed of a wide coverage in the local media.

Miniexcavadora Instrumented with hammer SB 552 of Atlas Copco.

Once finished the phase of demolition, RiverReach cleaned all the dirt accumulated during years, as well as the rests of concrete and reinforcements. To continuation, built walls of load of concrete for the ancient electrical head offices, that salvaguardarán the valuable historical structures of the fluctuations of the discharge of the river and of the demolitions that hit against them during the grown.