Vacuum excavation

A suction excavator or vacuum excavator is a construction vehicle that removes materials from a hole on land, or removes heavy debris on land.

A suction excavator produces powerful suction through a wide pipe which is up to 30 centimetres (1 ft) or so in diameter. The suction inlet air speed may be up to 100 metres per second (220 mph). Its construction is somewhat like a vacuum truck (gully emptier) but with a wider suction hose and a more powerful suction.

The suction nozzle may have two handles for the operator to hold; those handles may be on a collar which can be rotated to uncover suction-release openings (with grilles over) to release the suction to make the suction nozzle drop anything which it has picked up and is too big to go up the tube.

The end of the tube may be toothed. This helps to cut earth when used for excavating; but when it is used to suck up loose debris and litter, some types of debris items may snag on the teeth. The earth to be sucked out may be loosened first with a compressed-air lance, or a powerful water jet.

Excavating with a suction excavator may called "vacuum excavation", or "hydro excavation" if a water jet is used. Vacuum excavation (also known as suction excavation) is considered a best practice for safely finding and seeing underground utilities, reducing by more than half the chance of damaging buried utilities.

The RSP GmbH have been making suction excavators and stationary suction units since 1993. Since 2000, RSP developed a new suction principle, the ESE Series. These vehicles work with the internationally patented suction principle which guarantees the highest degree of gravity separation, lowest contamination of the filters and thus consistently high suction performance.

Since 1998, the MTS Mobile Tiefbau Saugsysteme GmbH is making another type of suction excavator. It is said to have a new designed air flow principle, and thus a considerably improved suction performance.

(Gully emptiers and the old type of suction street cleaner vehicle that could only pick up loose debris have been around for much longer.)

The RSP GmbH produced since 1993 (History) suction superstructures mounted onto two, three and four-axle vehicles, stationary suction units as well as custom-made machines. The RSP GmbH in Germany is the market leader for fan based suction technology.

The suction unit is roughly rectangular-block-shaped, about 2.5 metres wide and 3.6 metres high, and is usually mounted and used on the back of a truck, which must have power takeoffs to run the suction unit's air impeller and hydraulics. When it is emptying its load out, the spoil tank lid (with the hose connection) hinges off to the right, then the spoil tank (with the filters) tips about 90° over to the left to tip its load out.

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Wikipedia