Hydraulic Breaker Attachment Product

Overview

A hydraulic breaker converts an excavator's hydraulic flow into a stream of hammer blows. Inside the Percussion Unit, oil drives a heavy Striking Piston up and down; each down-stroke ends with the piston striking the shank of the Chisel Tool, sending a stress wave down the steel into rock or concrete at 300–1,200 blows per minute. Breakers span an enormous range — from 100 kg units on mini-excavators delivering a few hundred joules per blow, to 10-tonne hammers on 100-tonne carriers delivering 16 kJ — but the architecture is the same stack of backhead, cylinder and front head clamped by four Tie Rod bolts and hung inside a damped box.

The breaker replaced drilling-and-blasting for much demolition, trenching in rock, oversize breaking in quarries and foundation removal, because it needs no vibration permits, no exclusion zone and no consumables beyond tool steels and grease.

The percussion cycle

The cycle is controlled by the Control Valve, a pilot-operated spool that alternately routes high-pressure oil to the piston's lower and upper drive faces inside the honed Main Cylinder. On the return stroke, oil lifts the piston against the nitrogen in the Gas Chamber of the Gas Backhead, compressing it like a gas spring. When the piston passes a porting edge, the valve flips: pump pressure and the expanding gas now act together on the down-stroke, accelerating the piston to 8–12 m/s before it lands on the tool shank. Most modern breakers derive 60–80 % of blow energy from the gas charge, which is why checking backhead pressure with the Backhead Charge Valve is a routine service item — a soft charge directly weakens every blow.

Because the piston demands oil in pulses far steeper than a pump can deliver, the Hydraulic Accumulator sits on the pressure line as a buffer. Its Accumulator Diaphragm flexes each cycle, releasing stored oil into the down-stroke and swallowing the spike when flow reverses, protecting the carrier's pumps and hoses from hydraulic hammer. Many breakers offer a Stroke Selector that shortens piston travel: less energy per blow but more blows per minute, the right trade on soft or laminated material.

Tool and front head

Blow energy is useless unless it enters the rock, and that path runs through the tool group. The Upper Tool Bushing and Lower Tool Bushing guide the steel so the piston strikes it square; the Tool Retainer Pin pair lets the tool float 10–20 mm so the piston, not the pins, carries impact. Tools are forged chromium-molybdenum steel in three working shapes — moil point for general breaking, flat chisel for trenching and benching, blunt for oversize boulders where the goal is internal fracture rather than penetration. The cardinal operating sin is blank firing: triggering the hammer without the tool pressed against work, which slams impact energy back into the bushings, pins and piston. Modern hammers include blank-fire protection porting that kills the stroke when the tool is unloaded.

The Auto-Lubrication System keeps the steel alive. A flow-driven Grease Pump doses high-temperature chisel paste from a Chisel Paste Cartridge into the bushing gallery only while the hammer fires; the graphite and copper solids in the paste survive contact temperatures that melt ordinary grease. Heavy users consume roughly a cartridge per shift, and dry bushings are the leading cause of seized tools and scored shanks.

Housing and carrier interface

The percussion stack does not bolt rigidly to the excavator. It hangs inside the Housing Shell on Damping Buffer pads that isolate recoil from the stick and drop radiated noise by up to 10 dB on silenced versions lined with Acoustic Lining. The box itself is 400 HB abrasion-resistant plate with bolt-on Wear Plate sections at the nose, so the operator can use the breaker body to nudge and position rock. On top, the Top Bracket adapts the housing to a specific carrier — direct pin-on through Mounting Pin sets, or a sandwich plate for quick couplers.

Hydraulically, the breaker is a single-acting consumer on the carrier's hammer circuit: 120–180 bar at anywhere from 30 to 450 L/min depending on size, plumbed through the Pressure Hose and an oversized Return Hose, with Shut-Off Valve taps for tool-free attachment swaps. Return-line back-pressure matters more than operators expect — above 10–20 bar it directly subtracts from piston acceleration. Matching breaker to carrier is equally unforgiving in the other direction: a hammer too heavy for the excavator tips it on the boom, while one too light is destroyed by the down-force the machine can apply. Manufacturers publish carrier weight windows for each model, and staying inside them, keeping gas charges correct and greasing the steel account for most of the difference between a 5,000-hour breaker and a 1,500-hour one.