As noted elsewhere, Vulcan got itself into many products outside of pile driving equipment. One of those was railroad equipment. Some of these didn't work out as planned, as was the case with the Caldwell Steam Snow Plow. Others, ostensibly, had a happier outcome for everyone. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, one of … Continue reading The Hicks Track Laying Machine, and an Example of Belt/Band Friction
As this site has documented, Vulcan produced more than pile driving equipment, especially in the years before World War I. One of those is the 1500 lb. jib post crane depicted above, which Vulcan produced for the Thomas B. Jeffery Company in Kenosha, WI, an automobile manufacturer. (It ultimately became Nash motors, which in turn … Continue reading A Vulcan Jib Crane, and an Example of a “Two-Force Member”
This is a brief summary of the basic theory behind vibratory power. It goes back to Savinov and Luskin (the original summary of the development of the technology) and I've covered it repeatedly in my monographs. The basic model is shown above. It assumes that that soil acts as a velocity-dependent damper, which speaks to … Continue reading The Basics of Vibratory Power Theory
The 1400, driving sheeting for a creosote plant environmental remediation in Chattanooga. The 1400 incorporated many of the features of the 400, including the curved eccentric case (which was mated to the 7" clamp.) The original suspension was an H-beam, but this proved too light for bias weight, and was replaced by the cast unit … Continue reading Estimating the Starting Time of a Vulcan Vibratory Hammer
As a way of starting off the new year, and at the request of one our visitors (and someone who facilitated saving much of this information, thanks) here is presented Vulcan Catalogue No. 48, 1920, which can be downloaded here. I've used material from this particular catalogue in the past. This is the first catalogue … Continue reading 1920 Vulcan Catalogue of Pile Driving Machinery
Recently the paper "Prefabricated and Prestressed Bio-Concrete Piles: Case Study in North Jakarta" cited my work Vibratory and Impact-Vibration Pile Driving Equipment. I always like to pass along works which cite mine (and are openly available like this one.) When I wrote my own article in 1989 and revised it three years later, I had … Continue reading Comments on “Prefabricated and Prestressed Bio-Concrete Piles: Case Study in North Jakarta”
Another Vulcan distributor has passed on: Alfred “Al” Roy Kern, beloved husband, father, grandfather and Pittsburgh businessman, age 89, passed on to be with our Lord on August 29, 2024, peacefully at home in Ocean Ridge, FL. Al was former President and Chairman of Equipment Corporation of America [ECA], based in Coraopolis, PA and was associated … Continue reading RIP Al Kern
It is with this post that we wish you a Merry Christmas. This year 2024 is the sixtieth anniversary of Vulcan's relocation of its headquarters from Chattanooga to West Palm Beach, FL. Although we cover that history elsewhere on this site, this is a brief summary in photos of that part of the company's history. … Continue reading Merry Christmas from vulcanhammer.info
When Vulcan introduced the Vari-Cycle in the late 1960's, it thought that the issue of stroke changing during operation had been solved. But there were exceptions Both the #1 and #0 series hammers had difficulties with physically accommodating the Vari-Cycle, and when the 5' stroke hammers were introduced in these size ranges there were durability … Continue reading Traverse Trip
We've been posting some pretty technical stuff lately. While there is a good deal of that here, we're going to use this to illustrate two things: how projectile motion works and why you shouldn't put starter fluid in a diesel hammer. The Situation Let's consider the situation where the contractor brought the rig illustrated below … Continue reading Projectile Motion, or Why You Don’t Put Starter Fluid in a Diesel Hammer
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