A concrete pump is a tool used for transferring liquid concrete

Concrete

Concrete is a composite construction material, composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water and chemical admixtures.The word concrete comes from the Latin word...

 by pump

Pump

A pump is a device used to move fluids, such as liquids, gases or slurries.A pump displaces a volume by physical or mechanical action. Pumps fall into three major groups: direct lift, displacement, and gravity pumps...

ing. There are two types of concrete pumps.

The first type of concrete pump is attached to a truck

Truck

A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, with the smallest being mechanically similar to an automobile...

. It is known as a trailer-mounted boom concrete pump because it uses a remote-controlled articulating robot

Robot

A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...

ic arm (called a boom) to place concrete with pinpoint accuracy. Boom pumps are used on most of the larger construction projects as they are capable of pumping at very high volume

Volume

Volume is the quantity of three-dimensional space enclosed by some closed boundary, for example, the space that a substance or shape occupies or contains....

s and because of the labour saving nature of the placing boom. They are a revolutionary alternative to truck-mounted concrete pumps.

The second main type of concrete pump is either mounted on a truck and known as a truck-mounted concrete pump or placed on a trailer

Trailer (vehicle)

A trailer is generally an unpowered vehicle pulled by a powered vehicle. Commonly, the term trailer refers to such vehicles used for transport of goods and materials....

, and it is commonly referred to as a line pump or trailer-mounted concrete pump. This pump requires steel

Steel

Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

 or rubber

Rubber

Natural rubber, also called India rubber or caoutchouc, is an elastomer that was originally derived from latex, a milky colloid produced by some plants. The plants would be ‘tapped’, that is, an incision made into the bark of the tree and the sticky, milk colored latex sap collected and refined...

 concrete placing hose

Hose (tubing)

A hose is a hollow tube designed to carry fluids from one location to another. Hoses are also sometimes called pipes , or more generally tubing...

s to be manually attached to the outlet of the machine. Those hoses are linked together and lead to wherever the concrete needs to be placed. Line pumps normally pump concrete at lower volumes than boom pumps and are used for smaller volume concrete placing applications such as swimming pool

Swimming pool

A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, or simply a pool, is a container filled with water intended for swimming or water-based recreation. There are many standard sizes; the largest is the Olympic-size swimming pool...

s, sidewalk

Sidewalk

A sidewalk, or pavement, footpath, footway, and sometimes platform, is a path along the side of a road. A sidewalk may accommodate moderate changes in grade and is normally separated from the vehicular section by a curb...

s, and single family home concrete slabs and most ground slabs.

There are also skid mount

Skid mount

A Skid mount is a popular method of distributing and storing machinery for the military and industry, simply put, the machinery at point of manufacture is permanently mounted in a frame or onto rails or a metal Pallet...

ed and rail mounted concrete pumps, but these are uncommon and only used on specialized jobsites such as mines

Mining

Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

 and tunnel

Tunnel

A tunnel is an underground passageway, completely enclosed except for openings for egress, commonly at each end.A tunnel may be for foot or vehicular road traffic, for rail traffic, or for a canal. Some tunnels are aqueducts to supply water for consumption or for hydroelectric stations or are sewers...

s.

Mechanism

These are piston-type pumps. They can deal with hundreds of atmospheres of head. Such piston-style pumps are suitable to push cylinders of heterogenous concrete mixes (aggregate plus cement).

World record

The world record was set at on 7 August 2009 during the construction of the Parbati

Parbati River (Himachal Pradesh)

Parbati River is a river in Himachal Pradesh, India that flows into the Beas River at Bhuntar, some 10 km south of Kullu. It rises from the Man Talai Glacier below the Pin Parbati pass and flows in a gradual curve from north-northwest to west-southwest past the important temple town of...

 Hydroelectric Project, near the village of Suind, Himachal Pradesh

Himachal Pradesh

Himachal Pradesh is a state in Northern India. It is spread over , and is bordered by the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir on the north, Punjab on the west and south-west, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh on the south, Uttarakhand on the south-east and by the Tibet Autonomous Region on the east...

, India, when the concrete mix was pumped through a vertical height of 715 m (2,345.8 ft) using SCHWING STETTER concrete pump.

As of 2011, an even larger concrete pump was built and sent to Japan's post-quake

2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami

The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku, also known as the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, or the Great East Japan Earthquake, was a magnitude 9.0 undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 14:46 JST on Friday, 11 March 2011, with the epicenter approximately east...

relief effort.