Is There Anything a Hydraulic Press Can’t Crush?

Hydraulic presses make quick work of flattening and crushing objects, helping a workshop make money by crushing old oil filters for recycling purposes.

One YouTube channel has taken hydraulic press testing to new heights by testing whether its 100 ton machine can crush anything that stands in its way.

Diamonds

Diamonds may seem strong and resilient, yet despite having an Mohs hardness rating of 10, they're far more vulnerable than people realize. Even with such impressive strength, diamonds can still be crushed with enough force; just a simple hammer strike would suffice to crack one apart; it can even chip or break easily if held incorrectly.

Although diamonds don't appear to form magically, they do form in Earth using an intense process known as High Pressure High Temperature (HPHT). HPHT involves compressing graphite in an enormous hydraulic press with metallic catalyst, eventually leading to its transformation into diamond crystals.

Hydraulic Press Channel on YouTube frequently puts objects through their press to crush them, such as this 1.2-carat laboratory-grown diamond that was recently crushed with its massive power. The results are spectacular - shattering into dust in just an instant. The video currently has over 11 million views.

Concrete

Concrete is one of the hardest materials on Earth and can withstand incredible amounts of force, yet still be damaged by hydraulic presses. They can quickly crush a block of concrete when operated properly.

Operators have complete control over ram speed, direction, pressure dwell duration and force release settings to enable rapid material approach while gradually accelerating when making contact - this decreases overshoot risk while protecting dies from being damaged by overshoot.

The Hydraulic Press Channel's YouTube video offers an entertaining look into their tests to gauge various metals' strength against being crushed with a hydraulic press. They use cubes of gold, steel, titanium, copper, tin tungsten and magnesium in their tests and record how many tons it took them to break each one apart.

Magnets

Hydraulic presses may not be the ideal tool for dismantling large and powerful magnets; their force could splinter their magnetic fields that make them work, potentially disrupting pacemakers or plane navigation systems. Instead, facilities that use large and powerful magnets have special equipment on hand that turns them into ferromagnetic powder for shipping and installation purposes.

Magnet Powder has numerous practical uses beyond entertainment: from sorting out electronic waste to cleaning up nuclear waste. Furthermore, using Magnet Powder to test out new hydraulic presses can be very useful as magnetic powder is less dense than solid magnets and thus stretches more when compacted.

The Hydraulic Press Channel, an Internet phenomenon famous for flattening weird objects with hydraulic presses, made history when they attempted to press magnetic powder through their system for the first time. Soft metals like aluminum and tin were easily flattened using this machine (one commenter described it as "cream") while pure elemental tungsten did little more than change shape when put through their pressure testing device at 149 tons of pressure.

Steel

Hydraulic presses can flatten even the toughest metals with ease, as demonstrated by Hydraulic Press Channel (HPC) videos of their giant hydraulic machine smooshing stuff like bulletproof ceramic plates and railroad tracks - even using thermal cameras! They recently added another element by employing thermal cameras during these videos.

Viewers can see objects heat up as they are crushed, from soft metals like aluminum and tin melting as they become pancaked to harder ones like steel heating more rapidly; one small tube goes from room temperature to nearly boiling as its contents come under attack from its pancaked fate.

Finally, the HPC tests an alloy and steel wheel to see which can withstand more pressure. The alloy wheel triumphs, withstanding up to 23 tons before shattering; on the other hand, steel only manages 10 tons before giving in entirely and breaking catastrophically! These surprising results come from a machine capable of crushing cars and even buildings!