What are hydraulic hammers?
Hydraulic hammers are the modern descendants of pile drivers. Pile drivers are mechanical devices used to stake piles into the ground to lay the foundation for buildings. The advent of diesel, hydraulics, and pneumatics helped deliver the force needed to drive piles into the ground and accomplish larger construction projects. Hydraulic devices like the hydraulic hammer are based upon the theories of fluid mechanics and the work of Blaise Pascal and Daniel Bernoulli. A hydraulic system consists of a liquid, pump, pipes, motor, and output device. Hydraulics provide motive power to activate machinery by converting pressure exerted on a confined liquid medium into mechanical output. Pressure that is exerted on the enclosed, incompressible liquid is transferred equally in all directions and areas of the hydraulic system and is transmitted undiminished to the output device, which in this case is the hammer. According to Pascal’s law (P = F/A), applying a small force (F) to a small piston in
