The Excavator is the heavy equipment that can help people to do the heavy work efficiently. The excavators usually used for many kind of the industrial work, such as mining, road construction, building construction, and the demolishing.
The most common type of excavator is the crawler, dragline excavator, suction excavator, skid steer, and so on. Here are several types of the excavator:
1. Crawler Excavator
The crawler excavator is the kind of heavy equipment that has the design on the tires thats very similar to the tires on the tank. This design allows it to has a wider cross section of the tires so it can’t be stuck on the difficult track or the soft soil and not even soil.
The crawler excavator move from the tire that rotate on the axis with the chain covered it. Not only that, the crawler excavator equipped with the scrape mechanism, digger, and the carrier.
The crawler excavator can be easily spotted with the unique design of the moving components such as the tires mechanism, the rotor support, and the cabin on top of the rotating platform.
The crawler excavator mainly used for the needs of contstruction, ditch digger, river scrapper, hole scrapper, moving materials like sand and soil, building demolisher, and foundation builder.
The crawler excavator consists of several different types, such as the crawler excavator of hybrid that use the combination of the diesel machine and the electric motor that makes it less consuming of the fuel and environmentally frendly.
And then there is the short tail swing that can works in the tight space. It is usually used in the construction of bridge, in the settlement, on in very tight place. This excavator has the bucker capacity of 0,72 cubic meters, with the digging ability to 5,9 meters, and its weight of 14 ton.
And then there is the demolition excavator that has a specific task to demolish the building with its long arm. This type has the bucket capacity of 7,75 cubic meters, digging ability to 6,6 meters, and weight varied between 23-48 ton.
The last type is the super long front that has the longest arm among them to be able to reach the tallest and deepest reach. It has the bucket capacity of 0,51 cubic meters, digging ability to 11,8 meters, and weight varied between 23-42 ton.
2. Dragline Excavator
This type has somekind of unique feature that is the use of the steel cable and not the hydraulic cylinder. Besides, the dragline excavator also has two types such as the crawler dragline that has the tire similar to tank and movable to any place.
And there is also the on-site dragline that has to be built and placed in some position and cannot be moved, usually this type has heavier weight.
The biggest dragline excavator thats built has the weight of 13.000 ton and used for mining. On the land mining such as the sand mine and coal mine, it is usually use the dragline excavator, but for the oil mine offshore, they use another equipment such as the drill with the suction pipe, not with excavator.
The dragline excavator first found in the 1904 by John W. Page after he realized that building the dragline excavator has more benefits than rent the standard excavator. He found the design of the dragline excavator when building the Chicago canal.
The first design of the dragline excavator used with the chains and the diesel machine that specialized built to accommodate the dragline excavator .
The main flaw from the dragline excavator is the height and the length of the container arms that limit the area which the dragline excavator can throw away the materialsof the mine. Another flaw is the depth of the digging process that is limited by the length of the ropes that can be used by the dragline excavator.
Besides that, the dragline excavator need expensive cost of assembling and operational cost that is too high. The moving and re-assembling cost are too expensive and more time consuming, it will need the contractors with specific skills for this matter. But it has higher productivity level.
The biggest dragline excavator that been built is the Big Muskie. This machine needs two years just to build it.
Big Muskie need the power as big as 27.500 houses when operated. It is used for about 22 years before put it down because of the high electric bills.
3. Suction Excavator
The suction excavator is the type of excavator that can suck the soil with the specialized design of the suction soil arms around the cables and pipes. This technology of vacuum and pressure is to make sure the hard substances like the dirt, clays, and sands can be sucked fast without damage the building structures.
The suction excavator is very suitable to used for many needs. It has the hydrostatic mover that can make the work much faster and safer.
The suction excavator is the solution for the conventional digging matter in the city that can cause traffic jam, to reduce the repairing cost, and reduce the labor cost and also make it more efficient for the works.
The suction excavator usually used for the maintenance of the power plants, the water pipes, gas pipes, electric channel, constructions, and maintenance of the telecommunication cables.
4. Skid Steer Excavator
The skid-steer excavator is the heavy equipment with four tires that can rotate independently and simultaneously because of the gears mechanism on each of the side. To be able to rotate or turn around, the skid-steer excavator depends on the tires mover on each side that can be used independently.
This mechanism makes the skid-steer excavator to be able to rotate with the zero radius, it allows the skid-steer excavator to be so nimble in maneuver.
Another feature of this skid-steer excavator is there is the bucket arm mechanism that exist on the side of the driver. This design so that the body of the skid-steer excavator can operated in the tight area of construction.
5. Backhoe Loader
The backhoe loeader is the heavy equpment with smaller size. It is usually used in the smaller construction, repairing the city street, demolishing small building, moving building materials, digging, and make asphalt on the street, and so on.
The backhoe loader also has the additional accessories so that it can has the specific function such as the breaker, grappler, auger, and stump grinder.
The backhoe loader use the outrigger or the hydaulic stabilizer so it wont flinch when in the digging process. The flexibility and compact size allows it to be the most popular construction city equpment.
6. Stone Crusher
The stone crusher is the machine that designed to crush the big stone into smaller ones like gravel and sand. This is to make the material easier to be built to something else as the smaller subsctances like the making of concrete sand and asphalt.
This equpment works by transfering the mechanism force from the crushed materials. The stone crusher holds two surfaces to create enough energy inside the materials so the molecules can be separated.
7. Diesel Hammer
The diesel hammer is the equipment to punch the pile in to the earth to make the foundation for construction of a big building such as the sky scrapper building, the connection bridge between islands, and big building such ports.
This equipment has the punch loader that carry it to the top and release it to the object such as the piles.
8. Telehandler
Telehandler is a kind of heavy equipments thats used to distribute the material used in construction to the difficulty areas because of the height. It has longer arm that placed on the rotation platform.
9. Feller Buncher
The feller buncher is the type of excavator that has the function to cut the big trees in the forest. It can identify the tree based on the size and directly process it when it is on the pinchers and then put it on the loader or dump truck.
10. Pile Boring
The pile boring is equipment or excavator that works to make a hole or drill some points on the specific depth of soil. To make it more durable, usually the water jet is used to cool the drill and to make it easy for the soil to be drilled.
After reading this article hopefully you will be understand about the function and the capacity of the excavators mentioned before. So that you can consider before you buy or rent the excavator.
Every size and type of the excavator has its own purposes, same about the complementary tools. Like in the landscape project, carrier, or construction, this comprehensive guide can help you to identify the type of the excavators that you need in the future project.