The word “heavy equipment” (sometimes known as “heavy machinery“) refers to heavy-duty devices used in the construction, forestry, agriculture, and mining industries. These common types of heavy equipment are usually used to drill, lift, grade, suction, pave, and compact in addition to moving earth and other heavy materials.
Here are some of the common types of heavy equipment:
Construction machinery is a recent innovation because heavy machinery typically uses gasoline. On the other hand, heavy machinery has been around since the first century. According to reports, the ancient Romans used cranes and other heavy machinery. Engineers invented the first pile driver around 1500.
However, most large types of machinery relied on human or animal power until the nineteenth century. Then, the engineers designed the combined harvester and tractor to use steam power with the invention of the portable steam-power engine. Heavy machinery later employed kerosene and ethanol engines up by diesel or electric was supplanted power.
Have you ever wondered why bulldozers frequently use tracks rather than wheels? This idea can be traced back to World War I when tracked tanks were a standard combat vehicle.
Common Types of Heavy Equipment That Are Frequently Used:
Every day, hundreds of pieces of equipment power the construction, mining, and agricultural industries.
They are as follows:
- Tractors
- Loaders with skid steers
- Backhoe loaders are a type of backhoe that is used to
- bunchers feller
- Harvesters
- Scrapers
- Haulers with articulation
- Pavers
- Drilling equipment
- Trenchers
- Cranes
- Planers that work in the cold
- Draglines
- Rope shovels with electric motors
- Mining shovels using hydraulics
- plus a lot more
Excavators
Excavators have a cab, a boom, a stick, and a bucket (or other attachment). The cab is mounted on a rotating platform and has either tracks or wheels as an undercarriage. Hydraulic excavators are available in a wide range of sizes, with the smallest weighing a little over 2,000 pounds and the largest exceeding two million pounds. Buckets are standard on excavators, but you can also equip them with various hydraulic-powered attachments, including breakers, grapples, and augers.
Construction industries use excavators for several tasks, including the following:
- Demolition
- Handling of materials
- Mulching
- Dredging of rivers
- Landscaping
- Mining in open pits
- Cutting with a brush
- Drilling
- removing snow
Bulldozers are two of the most common types of construction equipment.
A bulldozer (also known as a crawler) is a continuously tracked tractor with a blade, a metal plate. The blade pushes large volumes of material, such as soil, sand, boulders, garbage, or even snow. There are three categories of bulldozer blades, and these are: “S blade,” “U blade,” and “S-U blade.” Because it is short and lacks side wings or a lateral curvature, the operators employ an S blade (straight blade) for precision grading. The U blade (universal blade) can handle more material because it is tall, curved, and has big side wings; the U blade (universal blade) can handle more material. Lastly, the S-U blade (semi-u blade) is a combined blade for pushing huge rocks. It is short, like the S blade, but it has a curve and side wings, unlike the S blade. People commonly utilize S-U blades in quarries.
Industries use bulldozers for a variety of tasks, including:
Construction, mining, forestry, land removal, and road construction
Dump Trucks
A dump truck (also known as a dumper truck, tipper truck, or rock truck) is a vehicle that transports materials from one place to another. You can distinguish it by its open-box bed, located at the back of the truck. It fits with the hydraulic rams that raise the front for dumping the material onto the ground.
Operators use Dump trucks for a variety of purposes, including:
Transporting and disposing of sand, rocks, and demolition debris.
Telehandlers
A telehandler (also known as a reach forklift or boom lift) is a boom attached (Telescopic cylinder). The boom on a telehandler may extend forward and upward, giving it more adaptability than a forklift. In addition, telehandlers can work with attachments at the end of the boom, such as a pallet fork, muck grab, bucket, or winch.
Telehandlers are efficient for a variety of tasks, including:
Moving the material from the ground to a higher place, such as the top of a roof.
When a crane is neither available nor suitable for a particular project, items must be moved (due to practicalities or time efficiency).
Compactors
A compactor is for compacting rocks or gravel, as the name implies. The construction business uses three compactors: the plate, the “jumping jack,” and the road roller. It is possible to achieve level grade using a plate compactor (also known as a vibratory rammer) and a jumping jack. On the other hand, the jumping jack has a smaller foot and may be utilized in tight ditches. Road roller compactors are good at compacting the ground before laying stone or concrete foundation slabs.
A loader is a machine that scoops up and transports things from one site to another, such as rocks, logs, snow, raw minerals, and demolition waste (or to a dump truck or conveyor belt). A loader typically has wheels, and the front-mounted bucket connected to the ends of two booms is immediately identifiable. Loaders go by a variety of names depending on their design and widespread use, such as:
- Front-loading dishwasher
- Loader with a bucket
- Loader for the front-end
- Payloader
- Wheeled excavator
Automobile Graders
The long blade of a motor grader (also known as a road grader or a grader) is used to grade (flatten and smooth) a road or surface.
The motor grader, like the bulldozer, can be equipped with a rear attachment. Rippers, compactors, blades, and scarifiers are examples of attachments.
Graders are great for a variety of purposes, including:
- Keeping dirt roads in good repair
- Getting roads ready to be paved
- Grading soil or gravel surfaces in order to lay a foundation for a building
Source: Blue Diamond