Trenche bucket excavator: description, application, photo

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Bucket-bucket excavators are used in the process of mining (gravel, clay, etc.) to remove rock. They are also used for grading the slopes of railway cuts and canals, as well as for handling loose materials and waste rock. This technique can process soils up to the 4th category, which do not contain large stones (inclusions). A bucket-wheel excavator works smoothly if the diameter of the inclusions does not exceed a fifth of the width of the bucket.

It is noteworthy that the surface of the face when using this technique is smooth and does not need manual cleaning. In this article, we will learn more about what a bucket-wheel excavator is.

Specific work

As a rule, bucket-wheel excavators are used in places where there is a large amount of the same type of work concentrated in one area. The reason for this is simple - the large dimensions of the equipment. Transporting it from place to place for the sake of small tasks will be expensive and time consuming, and therefore impractical. For small jobs that involve regular movement, there are small models of pneumatic wheel or automobile excavators.

Types of bucket machines

Techniques are classified byfeatured:

• In the direction of travel during operation. These can be longitudinal, transverse or rotary excavators.
• By type (design) of working equipment. There are chain excavators and bucket-wheel excavators.
• According to the method of supplying equipment to the face. Rock cutting can be vertically radial, horizontally radial or vertically parallel.

Based on these signs, we can conclude that there are several types of excavators. Let's consider each of them separately.

Cross Digging Machines

This is a bucket-wheel excavator, which can be tracked or rail mounted. Works by method of parallel or radial cutting. The chain can be directional (used in homogeneous soils for mining or planning large channels and excavations) or freely sagging (used in soils with inclusions). There are also excavators whose crawl distance can vary depending on the working conditions. They are used for digging and cleaning channels of drainage and irrigation systems.

Digging technique

This is a trench bucket excavator. It happens on a caterpillar, wheel-caterpillar, pneumatic wheel or automobile move. In turn, longitudinal digging models are divided into those that work with an annular chain, and those whose working body is a bucket wheel (rotor). The former are used for digging trenches with a width of no more than 1.1 m and a depth of up to 3.5 m. The lattercan dig deeper holes - 1, 6-1, 8 m.

Rotary Full Rotary

As a rule, this type has a caterpillar drive. But sometimes there is also a rail. The device is equipped with a bucket wheel and an electric drive. It can cut rock with a radial method in horizontal and vertical planes. It is used for the extraction of minerals, which occur in the form of layers. It can be refractory clays and other materials. The bucket-wheel excavator (rotary) is also used in large construction and stripping operations.

Advantages of multi-bucket machines

Despite the fact that single-bucket excavators are much more widespread, bucket-wheel excavators have a number of undeniable advantages that allow them to maintain their position in the market. Let's analyze these features:

• Continuous excavation work. Meanwhile, for a single-bucket machine, the period of direct soil sampling is a maximum of 30% of the total working time.
• When comparing the bucket and single bucket models with the same performance, you can see that the single bucket machine is heavier and bulkier.
• A bucket-wheel excavator consumes much less energy to excavate 1 cubic meter of rock than a machine of the same capacity, but with one bucket.

• When working in a construction quarry, the multi-bucket device provides the possibility of both uniform mixing of rocksof mined material and their sorting.
• The bucket-wheel excavator handles bevels while digging the ground. As a result, the recess has an almost perfect cross-sectional profile. A single-bucket machine develops a recess in ledges and leaves a shortage in each of them.

Technological deficiencies

However, there are parameters in which the single-bucket excavator clearly wins. Perhaps it is because of them that he is still in the lead in the market. Bucket excavator has the following weaknesses:

• This machine is a real gourmet, which is able to develop only a homogeneous soil no higher than grade 4 or with small inclusions up to grade 3. A single-bucket excavator can work without problems with any class and type of soil, including rocks.
• The single-bucket machine is not picky about weather conditions, which is not the case with the multi-bucket version.

For clarity, let's take a look at a couple of examples of a bucket-wheel excavator.

EM-251

This is a domestic device, which consists of:

• Running and power equipment, as well as mechanisms mounted on a fixed frame of a belt conveyor, which is designed to dump soil to the side or into the body of a transport.
• Working equipment (chains with buckets) mounted on the boom frame.

A multi-support caterpillar acts as running equipment. The internal combustion engine transmits rotation to the drive gears through a chain drive. Caterpillars have frames connected by means of axle shafts and a balancing device withmain frame. It turns out that the main frame rests on the caterpillar at three points. This allows you to achieve good excavator traffic.

When the bucket chain and the excavator itself move, a vertical trench is formed. The soil taken by the buckets goes through the bunker to the dump conveyor. He, in turn, throws it aside.

Multi-bucket trench chain excavators EM-251 can change the position of the boom relative to the frame. It rolls back along the guides, which allows you to change the degree of its penetration, and consequently, the depth of the trench. When transporting the machine, the boom is in the up position. The machine is controlled using a special remote control, which is located in the operator's cab on the right, near the gearshift lever. This allows the driver to simultaneously monitor the movement of the apparatus and the operation of the burrowing mechanisms.

EM-182

Let's analyze another bucket-wheel excavator. Em-281 - this is sometimes mistakenly called this model. It consists of:

• Undercarriage with single rib wheels. A detachable frame is installed on it, carrying the hopper, turas shaft, counterweight truss, cab, upper part of the bucket frame, and, of course, the engine with transmission.
• The lower part of the bucket frame, which has two planning links carrying the bucket chain.
• Jib that supports the channel system and block suspension.
• Electrical equipment and lighting devices.

The excavator is controlled by three levers located in the operator's cab. The first is responsible for turning on the bucket chain. The second - for the course of the cart. Well, the third - for raising and lowering the boom. The latter is held in the desired position thanks to the brake located on the worm shaft. The electric motor transmits the movement through V-belts, the tension of which, as well as the angle of the pulley, is determined by the position of the tensioner. The main shaft transmits rotation through a chain transmission to the tourer. The soil cut by the buckets is transferred to the bunker, and then enters the trolleys transporting it to its destination.

Thanks to the lifting winch, the bucket-wheel excavator shown above can be used for both upper and lower parallel digging, during which both ends of the bucket frame are synchronously raised and lowered. Thus, the bucket frame moves parallel to itself. Buckets at the same time remove a layer of the same thickness at any height of the face. In order to perform fan cutting, which involves the movement of only one end of the frame, it is lowered accordingly.

Conclusion

Today we found out what bucket-wheel excavators are and why they are not as common as single-bucket excavators. It should be noted that the restrictions on the performance of machines imposed by the type of soil are very arbitrary and are different for different types of excavators. And the continuous improvement of multi-bucket machines and the introduction of new design solutions suggests that in the near futureall shortcomings will be eliminated

By the way, bucket-wheel excavators conditionally also include continuous earth-moving machines, despite the fact that they use cutters or scrapers instead of buckets.