4 Most Used Heavy Earth Moving Equipment

Heavy earth moving equipment constitute almost 60% of the ECE market segment and sales across the world. Here is a brief overview of the top 4 heavy earth moving equipments to get a better understanding of what these machines are and why they are in such high demand across the globe.

• Excavators: These are hydraulic machines consisting of a boom stick and bucket attached to a cab mounted on a rotating platform called “house”. The house usually sits on an undercarriage of tracks or wheels. Excavator booms usually have one of the following configurations • Mono • Knuckle boom • Base hinged: this allows the boom to move 180 degree independent of the house • TAB (Triple articulated boom) that allows 360 degree movement. The boom then connects to the dipper which provides the digging force to pull the bucket. Long dippers are used for reach and the small ones for break out power. At the end of the dipper is the bucket which are available in various shapes and sizes for different tasks. Additionally there are various attachments that can be used for boring, crushing, cutting, ripping, lifting etc. SAE and ISO are the two most preferred control configurations across the world.
• Backhoe loaders: These are the most popular heavy earth moving equipment across the world and account for 45% of the heavy earth moving equipment market share. The machine is basically a tractor with a front loader and a backhoe. These machines are relatively smaller than excavators, have tires instead of tracks and only the operator’s seat swings instead of the whole cabin like in an excavator. While small in size, these machines are much more versatile and can be used with various attachments for jobs like breaking, crushing, lifting, digging, demolishing etc.
• Bulldozers: These are incredibly powerful machines used in road construction, land clearing, mining and construction. The machine comes in variants with tyres and tracks with its primary tool being the blade at the front and ripper at the back. Usually U, S or a combination of the U-S type blades are used for various purposes. The ripper is usually used to break the top layer of hard ground into rubble which can later be graded by the blade. a sharpened blade is often used to cut and cleat tree stumps after trees have been cut down.
• Skid steer loaders: These are compact, rigid and powerful machines with lift arms to carry out a lot of labour saving work. Unlike other machines, these do not have steering mechanism for wheels which are mechanically aligned with the side body of the machine. The front bucket of the machine can be replaced with various types of attachments like hydraulic breaker, pallet booms, auger, mower, snow blower etc to execute different jobs. Its compact size and high power gives it an edge over a lot of machines in its category.

Heavy earth moving equipment are a requisite for small and large sites alike across the world for all kinds of infrastructure related jobs thanks to their size, power and engineering that help complete daunting tasks with ease.