Bucketwheel Excavators

 
Giant Bucketwheel Excavators are the largest mobile machines worldwide. Current production rates are up to 240,000 m³ (bank) per day, digging heights of as much as 100 m and service weights of 13,500 tonnes.
 
  Picture 1 shows one of this machines operating in a German open pit mine of RWE. C-Frame bucketwheel excavators are built for a large number of applications. Custom designed and built for the specific operating conditions they range in capacities from 1,500bcm/h to 4,500bcm/h.
Picture 1: Giant Bucketwheel Excavator    
   
  Picture 2 shows one of this machines operating in the open pit mine Neyveli in India.
Picture 2: C-Frame Bucketwheel Excavator    
   
  Compact Bucketwheel Excavators are characterized by a counterweight below the discharge boom as well as their mounting on a two crawler undercarriage. A standard modular design allows adjustments to various mining conditions and realizes short relocation times. The high cost effective output to price ratio makes it most economical regarding operating costs. Today, compact bucketwheel excavators are offered with capacities from 100bcm/h up to 3,000 bcm/h.
 
 
  Picture 3 shows one of the strongest compact machines built so far, working in the Mae Moh open pit mine in Thailand.
Picture 3: Compact Bucketwheel Excavator    
 
  ThyssenKrupp Fördertechnik is building bucketwheel excavators since more than 130 years. For an overview of the machines delivered so far all over the world please refer to the attached reference list. The newest generation of bucketwheel excavators is represented by the compact machines, as shown on the picture. Of this type more than 90 have been built since 1975. All together more than 600 machines have been delivered.
 
Further Information:
 


 Continuous Mining with Bucketwheel Excavator Systems           Flash Video (.flv)

 More pictures and information on BWEs                                         Adobe Acrobat (.pdf)

 Reference list of bucketwheel excavators                                       Adobe Acrobat (.pdf)