The awards for the 100 best products and technologies will be presented today at a luncheon at Tavern on the Green in Manhattan, and the award-winning inventions will be featured in the December issue of Popular Science . This rapidly compressed helium drives the projectiles.
Researchers are confident that the device can be scaled up for even thicker concrete demolition.
The device is expected to be at least 25 percent faster than the jackhammer, and it is also safer and more worker-friendly. Since it will be quiet enough to use at night, it is expected to decrease traffic congestion during the day. Conventional jackhammers run on air supplied by a compressor, which uses gasoline or diesel fuel, while the new device runs on environmentally benign compressed gas. GRI holds the license to the technology, which the company projects will be marketed within a year. The U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory creates and operates major facilities available to university, industrial and government personnel for basic and applied research in the physical, biomedical and environmental sciences and in selected energy technologies.