How Scrap Car Crushers Work
The car crusher’s stomach rumbles; hungrily waiting for the next meal. Its hardened steel mouth gapes open to swallow a scrapped four door compact. The jaws begin to close in a slow deliberate fashion. The victim squeals and then — bang! — the windshield shatters. Seconds later — pop! pop! — the headlights explode. In under a minute, the compact is less than two feet tall and is picked up with a crane and deposited in a growing pile of crushed scrap cars. The crusher yawns to hungrily swallow another junk vehicle, whose value is no greater than the weight of the metal used to build it. It's all part of a highly efficient car salvage industry that reduces your car to its base elements to be reborn over and over again.
A car crusher is a fairly simple machine used to compress the metal remains of a junked car. Compressing scrap cars takes up less space when stored, or when transported to a recycling facility. A crusher is just one step of the auto-recycling process. They can also be used to compact other forms of metal waste, such as old appliances or even large farming machines like combines.
A large hydraulic press to used crush scrap cars. A motor powers a pump that forces hydraulic fluid that drives large cylinders. A hydraulic system can generate over 2,500 psi using force multiplication, resulting in 100 tons or more of pressure to flatten a junk car. Other crushers compact the car further, squeezing it laterally and sideways. The result is rather similar to a hay bale that has very compact. Some crushers work slightly differently by folding cars into square logs.