August 30, 2024
Wet drilling and dry drilling are substantially different processes, and they have very different rpm requirements. In general, wet drilling requires more power for a given diameter, more downforce, and a much slower linear speed (m/s). Dry drilling requires less power, light downforce, and much higher linear speed. In addition, dry drilling absolutely requires a vacuum cleaner and works much better if there is a soft percussion function. Standard dry drilling motors and bits are not suitable for drilling reinforced concrete. This means that any given machine will need to have different gear ratios and other features to perform either wet or dry drilling. Even machines which can drill both wet and dry, will still be optimized for one of the two applications.
There is a special, third category of machines, which are designed for dry drilling of reinforced concrete. These use special bits just for this purpose. Although the cost of these bits is generally higher than wet bits, this system solves some limitations encountered with wet drilling.
1.They are the only choice in situations where water is not allowed to be used.
2.They are much easier to use for overhead drilling.
3.They are simpler to use in below-freezing conditions.
4.They require less setup time, since water feed and collection are not needed.
5.They make a lot less mess, since the dust is going straight to the vacuum cleaner as you drill.
Therefore, operators drilling reinforced concrete at this time still drill wet as their default choice, but will use these special dry drilling machines in cases when there is a special requirement. As the cost of the dry drilling of RC consumables becomes more competitive, we expect to see more and more operators using this process in the future.