- Bucket-wheel excavator
Bucket-wheel excavators are
heavy equipment used insurface mining andcivil engineering . They are among the largestvehicles ever constructed, and the biggest bucket-wheel excavator ever built, theMAN Takraf RB293, is the largest terrestrial vehicle in human history.Operation
[
Garzweiler (Video, 1:40 Min., ca. 9 MB)] The excavation component itself is a large rotating wheel mounted on an arm or boom. On the outer edge of the wheel is a series of scoops or buckets. As the wheel turns, the buckets remove soil or rock from the target area and carry it around to the backside of the wheel, where it falls onto aconveyor , which carries it up the arm toward the main body of the excavator. Additional conveyors then may carry it further; in some cases, several long conveyors are placed end-to-end, each supported by a large vehicular base (usually withcaterpillar track s).ize
The largest bucket-wheel excavators in the world are used in German strip-mining operations. These tremendous earth-movers can cost over $100 million, take 5 years to assemble, require 5 people to operate, weigh more than 13,000 tons, and have a daily capacity of 240,000 tons of brown coal or m³
overburden . One of them,Bagger 288 , is working in stripmine Garzweiler ("Tagebau Garzweiler"), and five others in stripmine Hambach (among them Bagger 293). Bagger 288 (the oldest, assembly completed in 1978) is 240 meters long and 96 meters high. Until 2001 it worked in Hambach, and then drove as a giant caterpillar vehicle to Garzweiler, a distance of 22 km through the fields, crossing a few roads, a railroad, and a river. Bagger 293 (formerly RB293, manufactured byMAN Takraf ), the heaviest among these 240,000ers, was recognised by the Guinness Book of Records (2001-2006) as the largest (heaviest) land vehicle.Popular Culture
In
Transformers Cybertron , the character Metroplex has the ability to transform into a Bucket-wheel excavator.ee also
*
Bagger 288
*Reclaimer
*Trencher (machine)
*National Association of Heavy Equipment Training Schools – US educational organisation
*Overburden Conveyor Bridge F60 External links
* [http://www.worsleyschool.net/science/files/extreme/excavators.html Bucket Wheel Excavators at Extreme Machines]
* [http://www.fam.de/english/Products/Opencast%2520mining%2520systems/Bucket%2520wheel%2520excavators/ Bucket Wheel Excavators World wide Installations]
* [http://www.man-takraf.de/de/main.htm MAN Takraf (Deutsch) major manufacturer of open cast mining equipment-including the world's biggest Bucket wheel excavator]
* [http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061122.html Photo of bucket-wheel excavator crossing a road: Astronomy Picture of the Day 22 November 2006]
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