Creabeton begins manufacturing milled monolithic concrete … · 2016-12-07 · high degree of automation. The program-me-controlled production of any type of drain channel and corresponding

CPI – Concrete Plant International – 3 | 2011 www.cpi-worldwide.com150

CONCRETE PIPES AND MANHOLES

Mark Küppers, CPI worldwide, Germany

In 2006, Sebastian Müller AG from Rickenbach in the canton ofLuzern took over the shares of Steinag Rozloch from Stansstad in thecanton of Nidwalden and today still holds a majority stake in theseproduction facilities and sales companies. The logical sequel wasthe founding of Müller-Steinag Holding AG and the strategic advan-cement of group thinking. The Müller-Steinag Group is an indepen-dent and self-contained company operating throughout Switzerlandin the fields of concrete goods, prefabrication and natural construc-tion materials. A staff of more than 600 is employed in the manu-facture of high quality concrete goods and natural constructionmaterials in the different facilities.

The origins of the facility in Brugg date back to the year 1874 andit has borne the name of Creabeton Produktions AG since 2006.Concrete precast components for civil engineering purposes are

Creabeton begins manufacturing milled monolithicconcrete manhole base sections in Switzerland

Prinzing GmbH Anlagentechnik und Formenbau, 89143 Blaubeuren, Germany

The Swiss company, Creabeton Produktions AG, belongs to Müller-Steinag Holding AG. Their production facilities in Brugg, Flawil and Trimmis,trading under the name of Creabeton Produktions AG, manufacture all types of concrete goods for the construction industry. The firm main-tains distribution centres in the north and the east of Switzerland. Products are marketed via Müller-Steinag Baustoff AG and CreabetonBaustoff AG. This latter company is also a sales network for catalogued products from Müller-Steinag Group, who stock a full range of con-crete goods for civil engineering, road construction, landscape gardening and environmental design. Their own fleet of vehicles and diffe-rent regional operations guarantee a customer-friendly delivery service. For the environmental design and landscape gardening sectors, theysupply interlocking blocks, paving blocks, garden slabs, wall and embankment systems for slope reinforcement, pond border elements,blocks of steps, angled steps and stairways plus plant troughs and fountain basins. The range for civil engineering and road constructionincludes, amongst other things, sewerage systems, jacking pipes, concrete pipes with their accessories, manholes, drainage channels, sepa-rating plants, small-scale wastewater treatment plants and environmental technology products. Great emphasis is made on the use of up-to-date production methods and modern machine technology in manufacturing these concrete elements. The name of Creabeton standsfor innovative concrete products of high quality even beyond the country’s frontiers. As regards innovation, Creabeton Produktions AG hasnow sent out a very clear signal with their commissioning of a new production line for milled monolithic concrete manhole base sections inthe Brugg production facility. The Primuss plant supplied and installed by Prinzing GmbH from Blaubeuren, Germany, has not only substan-tially increased their capacities for manufacturing concrete manhole base sections. This investment has enabled the company to react ingood time to the growing demand for monolithic concrete manhole base sections. It has been supplying the market for some weeks nowwith such manhole elements – their channels individually made to customer specification – on time and in high quality.

Creabeton Produktions AG company premises in Brugg, Switzerland In the Brugg production facilities, Creabeton Produktions AG manu-factures catalogued products in high quality and great numbers;special construction components are also a feature of daily business

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produced in particular at this site. Its corecompetencies are the manufacture of lightwells, cantilever retaining walls, pipes andmanholes. The two first-named products aremanufactured with self-compacting concre-tes whereas pipes and manholes are madewith conventional concretes. A total of fourconcrete mixers from Kniele and Teka sup-ply the entire production process.

Creabeton Produktions AG is one of themajor producers of precast concrete com-ponents for underground civil engineeringin Switzerland. In Brugg, almost only greatvolumes of catalogued products are manu-factured with the exception of the new con-crete manhole base section unit, whichmanufactures solely to customer specifica-tions. All product groups are immediately

available in high numbers for customersthanks to the large outside storage areas.Current high demand has ensured verygood production capacity utilisation; thewell-filled order books have required repea-ted extra shifts since the beginning of theyear. The approximately 90 employees atthe Brugg site have also played their part inthe successful development of CreabetonProduktions AG. Numerous reference pro-jects speak for themselves, in which the faci-lity was involved as supplier. Extensive con-struction works, such as the Islisberg tunnel,the Zurich western ring road, Kloten airport(Zurich) and the Gotthard motorway, areonly some that can be named as examples.For all these projects, Creabeton Produk -tions AG has made its mark as a reliablesupplier of high-class concrete products. In

the field of waste water technology, Crea -beton provides a comprehensive range ofpipes and manholes. Demand has continu-ally remained at a high level particularly inthe manhole sector. In Switzerland as well,there has been a rapid growth in interest asregards monolithic solutions. Creabetonhas introduced its new manhole base sectionunit at the right time. Individual concretemanhole base sections are now no longer aspecial challenge any more and can beproduced and supplied at short notice.

Monolithic manhole base sections withvariable channels

Concrete milling technology, as regards themanufacture of monolithic concrete manholebase sections, has also made its debut in

First, the steel pallet and support cap arepositioned in the Atlas plant

Dosing shutters control the flow of concrete Subsequent compaction with superimposedload

Primuss milling bay with two work places Atlas system control station


Switzerland with the commissioning of thenew Primuss plant. The Primuss features ahigh degree of automation. The program-me-controlled production of any type ofdrain channel and corresponding pipe con-nections can be carried out with great pre-cision. Great numbers of concrete manholebase sections can be manufactured auto-matically in a short time with minor manpo-wer resources using just a handful of moulds.

The entire manhole base section productionis made up of two machine components.The first stage involves producing manholebase section blanks on an Atlas unit. After ahardening time of a few hours, which, ofcourse, is dependent on construction com-

ponent size, concrete recipe and ambienttemperature, the drainage channel andconnections are generated automatically inthe milling bay by a robot according to pro-duct parameters previously entered into thecomputer system. When a manhole basesection is ordered, the complete job isrecorded by an enterprise resource plan-ning (ERP) system and all relevant manholedata are fed into it.

Atlas – a flexible manufacturing system

Atlas is a flexible manufacturing system de -signed in modular units of different indivi-dual components, such as feed equipment,compaction unit, press and transport systems.

The plant’s control unit ensures entirely pro-gramme run operations at Creabeton inBrugg.

The Atlas system can produce manholebase sections without a channel in varyingheights, differing wall thicknesses and dia-meters from 800-1,200 mm. First, a steelpallet and a support cap are placed intothe unit. Release agent is applied to the sup-port cap.

Then, both steel pallet and support cap arelowered to basement level to where theouter mould is located. The outer mouldand support cap make up the formwork forthe manhole blank.

www.cpi-worldwide.com CPI – Concrete Plant International – 3 | 2011 153


Setting down a concrete manhole blank onthe clamping ring in the work bay

Milling a drainage channel Automatic tool change

The two-part tool storage unit offers mountings for a total of six milling heads




Concrete is fed into the Atlas unit’s storagehopper by means of a Rekers bucket con-veyor. The concrete is transferred viadosing shutters to a conveyor belt, whichthen brings the concrete to the mould. Thezero-slump concrete is compacted withvibration of controlled amplitude and fre-quency. The flow of concrete can be con-trolled very precisely via these dosing shut-ters so that no more concrete is given intothe mould than absolutely necessary.

Manhole blanks are concreted on theirhead and once their base has been con-creted, this production process ends. Asuperimposed load is applied to the basesection and it is further compacted to crea-te a well-compacted, planar surface. Thefinished blanks travel up from the plant’sbasement level for removal by forklift. Theconcrete monoliths are transported on theirsteel pallets to the curing area. The blanksremain here until they have reached thedesired green strength.

Fully automated milling bay with permanent milled material evacuation

Once the concrete blanks have attainedsufficient strength (after approx. 2-4 hoursdepending on marginal conditions), theblanks are lifted from the support cap withthe collar and are brought to the millingbay by forklift. The milling bay possesses acentrally positioned robot and two proces-sing points - unmilled manhole base sectionsare inserted and the milled ones then remo-ved - thus allowing milling to be carried onwithout interruption. The monoliths are thenset down on their head, as they were pro-duced in the Atlas system, in the work bay

on a rotatable clamping ring. There is alarge pit underneath the work bays thatprovides room for the robot to work in.Downward sloping panels, converging atthe pit’s bottom and discharging onto aconveyor belt operating continuously, ensurethat no milled material can be deposited.This horizontal conveyor conducts any mil-led material out of the work pit and trans-fers it to a second belt, which, in turn, bringsit to an accumulation bin at hall level. Thematerial collected can then be fed backinto production again.

Milling the drainage channelsThe robot always first begins by milling thedrainage channel. Milling heads with PKDcutting blades are utilised for this purpose.The spherically shaped milling head em- plo yed for creating the drainage channelcuts into the concrete one layer at a timeuntil it has been made in its specified finalform.

When the channel is milled overhead, theloose concrete falls in small particles per-pendicularly onto the above-mentioneddownward sloping panels. Material, mo men- tarily deposited on the robot’s arm duringmilling, automatically drops down due tothe machine’s regular rapid movements. Therobot keeps on continually cleaning itself inthis way.

Milling the pipe connectionsThe next stage involves milling the pipe con-nections. For this purpose, the robot firstautomatically changes the milling tool. Therobot arm travels to the tool storage unitand places the milling head in prior use intothe mounting provided. The tool is detach -

The milling head moves in circular paths.The concrete is cut in layers right up to thetotal wall thickness.

The milling head breaks through A well-designed conveyor belt system carries the milled materialaway from the working area


ed from the arm and a new tool attached inan analogous fashion. A side milling cutteris normally employed in milling the pipeconnections.

The milling head is carefully positioned onthe monolith. The robot works from the exte-rior towards the interior. The forward feedin milling is monitored automatically by therobot and is adapted to every individualstate of concrete hardness. The robot’s armdescribes circular paths cutting into the con-crete in layers.

There are almost no limits set to the number,size and design of the pipe connections.Once the first pipe connection has been mil-led – always from the rear - the concretemonolith is automatically turned to theappropriate angle by means of the clamp -

ing ring and the next connection can be mil-led. Cycles times for milling obviously thenalways vary in relation to the amount ofwork needed. Less elaborate monoliths needsome 5-7 minutes; very complex drainagechannel designs with a number of pipe con-nections need more time accordingly.

Removing the finished concrete manholebase section The concrete base section is finished onceall the pipe connections have been milled.The monolith is lifted out of the work baywith a forklift and placed in the storagearea foreseen for final hardening. Any resi-dual milled material, which may have col-lected in the pipe connections, is simplyswept off with a hand brush.

The concrete manhole base sections areloosened from the collar and rotated 180°after attaining sufficient strength. As an op-tion, seals can now be set in. At CreabetonProduktions AG in Brugg, seals from DS-Dichtungstechnik are utilised.

Start of production and marketing after asuccessful trial phase

Once the plant had been installed in thespring of this year, it was commissioned bythe Prinzing team. Creabeton ProduktionsAG manager, Mr Marco Bizzarri, expres-sed his great satisfaction with the newsystem after just a few trial runs, duringwhich the plant received its fine tuning. Thegoal is a yearly production of some 2,000monolithic concrete manhole base sectionswith the Primuss manufacturing process. Themarket launch could already begin in May2011 and has had a great response. �

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Pipe connections are swept out at the end

FURTHER INFORMATION

Creabeton Produktions AGAarauerstr. 755201 Brugg, SwitzerlandT +41 56 4605111F +41 56 4605199 [email protected]

Prinzing GmbHAnlagentechnik und FormenbauZum Weißen Jura 389143 Blaubeuren, GermanyT +49 7344 1720F +49 7344 [email protected] www.primuss.eu

Milled manhole monoliths in the storage area for furthering hardening View of a milled manhole base section


Creabeton begins manufacturing milled monolithic concrete … · 2016-12-07 · high degree of automation. The program-me-controlled production of any type of drain channel and corresponding

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