Epiroc HB 3100 hydraulic breaker in foundation works at former bullring area in Portugal

The former area of Praça de Touros (bullring), in the Portuguese coastal town of Cascais some 35 km west of Lisbon, is making way for a luxury development. A premium residential complex is being built in one of the most elegant districts in the municipality of Cascais. As part of this development, Restradas is excavating a construction pit 12 metres deep for the future building site.

As the construction project is located just a few metres away from other residential complexes, conventional blast methods could not be used to demolish the rock. Project management decided to use hydraulic breakers to remove the 100,000 m³of very hard, resistant limestone instead.

This involved using Restradas’s large excavators, which were equipped with different hydraulic breakers. Restradas required for its 36-ton excavator a hydraulic breaker which would meet the demanding requirements of such a task. It was decided to contract Epiroc Portugal to provide a suitable hydraulic breaker.

Founded by Fernando Ferreira Melo in Penafiel in April 1995, Restradas has specialised in areas such as civil engineering, demolition, excavation work, waste recycling and the production and marketing of aggregates. The company has proven expertise in handling large-scale projects in these different areas of use.

As Restradas was already familiar with the high productivity obtained from Epiroc's premium series of hydraulic breakers and is able to look back on a long history of success in the demolition sector, they decided to acquire the 3,000 kg HB 3100 hydraulic breaker with ContiLube ® II and the Intelligent Protection System (IPS). This device is equipped with the DustProtector system, which is eminently suitable for premium demolition of extremely resistant stone, as is the case with the limestone in Cascais.

There are many other features which make this German-made tool precisely the right equipment for this particular task: The robust design and long service life of all HB breaker components; the auto-greasing system ContiLube® II or the EnergyRecovery system, which uses the energy from the piston rebound to reduce wear and vibrations on the carrier vehicle. And the new IPS system, that ensures that the hydraulic breaker always starts in the AutoStart mode. When the contact pressure between chisel and material increases and AutoControl switches from a short piston stroke to a long piston stroke IPS switches automatically to the AutoStop mode. When the chisel breaks through the material the breaker automatically shuts off and prevents blank firing. All these features make this hydraulic breaker a must-have for highly demanding work.

International Hydraulic attachment tools 2019 HB hydraulic breakers Press release