Excavators are vital and commonly utilized machinery in the construction industry. Their primary function is excavation, but they also serve various other roles such as heavy lifting, demolition, river dredging, and tree cutting, among others. An excavator comprises a long arm and a cabin. A digging bucket is attached to the end of the arm, and the cabin serves as the operator’s compartment. This entire cabin setup can rotate a full 360 degrees, simplifying operations. Excavators come in both wheeled and tracked vehicle forms. The most common uses for an excavator include:
A backhoe is a versatile piece of equipment commonly used for various purposes. Its name indicates that the hoe mechanism is situated at the vehicle’s rear, while a loading bucket is mounted at the front. This configuration is particularly useful for digging trenches below the machine’s level and for the loading, unloading, and lifting of materials with the front bucket.
Bulldozers are another type of soil excavating equipment which are used to remove the topsoil layer up to particular depth. The removal of soil is done by the sharp-edged wide metal plate provided at its front. This plate can be lowered and raised using hydraulic pistons. These are widely used for the removal of weak soil or rock strata, lifting of soil etc.
Graders also called as motor graders are another type of equipment used in construction especially for the construction of roads. It is mainly used to level the soil surface. It contains a horizontal blade in between front and rear wheels and this blade is lowered in to the ground while working. Operating cabin is provided on the top of rear axle arrangement. Motor Graders are also used to remove snow or dirt from the roads, to flatten the surface of soil before laying asphalt layer, to remove unnecessary soil layer from the ground etc.
Loaders are used in construction site to load the material onto dumpers, trucks etc. The materials may be excavated soil, demolition waste, raw materials, etc. A loader contain large sized bucket at its front with shorter moving arm. Loader may be either tracked or wheeled. Wheeled loaders are widely used in sites while tracked or crawled loaders are used in sites where wheeled vehicles cannot reach.
Trenchers or Trenching machines are used to excavate trenches in soil. These trenches are generally used for pipeline laying, cable laying, drainage purposes etc. Trenching machines are available in two types namely chain trenchers and wheeled trenchers. Chain trenchers contains a fixed long arm around which digging chain is provided. Wheeled trenchers contains a metal wheel with digging tooth around it. To excavate hard soil layers, wheeled trenchers are more suitable. Both types of trenchers are available in tracked as well as wheeled vehicle forms.
Wheel Tractor Scrapers are earth moving equipment used to provide flatten soil surface through scrapping. Front part contains wheeled tractor vehicle and rear part contain a scrapping arrangement such as horizontal front blade, conveyor belt and soil collecting hopper. When the front blade is lowered onto the ground and vehicle is moved, the blade starts digging the soil above the blade level and the soil excavated is collected in hopper through conveyor belt. When the hopper is full, the rear part is raised from the ground and hopper is unloaded at soil dump yard.
Dump trucks are used in construction sites to carry the material in larger quantities from one site to another site or to the dump yard. Generally, in big construction site, off-road dump trucks are used. These off-road dump trucks contains large wheels with huge space for materials which enables them to carry huge quantity of material in any type of ground conditions.
Dragline excavator is another heavy equipment used in construction which is generally used for larger depth excavations. It consists a long length boom and digging bucket is suspended from the top of the boom using cable. For the construction of ports, for excavations under water, sediment removal in water bodies etc. can be done by dragline excavator.
