CEM 4

-There are various types of earthmoving equipments used in construction, few of the pivotal
ones are described below.?

Excavators

Excavators are heavy construction equipment consisting of a boom, dipper (or stick), bucket
and cab on a rotating platform known as the “house”. The house sits atop an undercarriage with
tracks or wheels. They are a natural progression from the steam shovels and often mistakenly
called power shovels. All movement and functions of a hydraulic excavator are accomplished
through the use of hydraulic fluid, with hydraulic cylinders and hydraulic motors. Due to the
linear actuation of hydraulic cylinders, their mode of operation is fundamentally different from
cable-operated excavators which use winches and steel ropes to accomplish the movements.

Backhoe loader

A backhoe loader, also called a loader backhoe, digger in layman’s terms, or colloquially
shortened to backhoe within the industry, is a heavy equipment vehicle that consists of a
tractor-like unit fitted with a loader-style shovel/bucket on the front and a backhoe on the back.
Due to its (relatively) small size and versatility, backhoe loaders are very common in urban
engineering and small construction projects (such as building a small house, fixing urban roads,
etc.) as well as developing countries. This type of machine is similar to and derived from what is
now known as a TLB (Tractor-Loader-Backhoe), which is to say, an agricultural tractor fitted with
a front loader and rear backhoe attachment.

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Different types of earthmoving equipment used in construction
By Constro Facilitator -February 17, 2020049981
earthmoving equipment
Earthmoving equipment is heavy equipment, typically heavy-duty vehicles designed for
construction operations which involve earthworks. They are used to move large amounts of
earth, to dig foundations for landscaping and so on. Earthmoving equipment may also be
referred to as; heavy trucks, heavy machines, construction equipment, engineering equipment,
heavy vehicles and heavy hydraulics. Most earthmoving equipment uses hydraulic drives as the
primary source of motion.

++There are various types of earthmoving equipments used in construction, few of the pivotal
ones are described below.?

Excavators
Excavators are heavy construction equipment consisting of a boom, dipper (or stick), bucket
and cab on a rotating platform known as the “house”. The house sits atop an undercarriage with
tracks or wheels. They are a natural progression from the steam shovels and often mistakenly
called power shovels. All movement and functions of a hydraulic excavator are accomplished
through the use of hydraulic fluid, with hydraulic cylinders and hydraulic motors. Due to the
linear actuation of hydraulic cylinders, their mode of operation is fundamentally different from
cable-operated excavators which use winches and steel ropes to accomplish the movements.

Backhoe loader

A backhoe loader, also called a loader backhoe, digger in layman’s terms, or colloquially
shortened to backhoe within the industry, is a heavy equipment vehicle that consists of a
tractor-like unit fitted with a loader-style shovel/bucket on the front and a backhoe on the back.
Due to its (relatively) small size and versatility, backhoe loaders are very common in urban
engineering and small construction projects (such as building a small house, fixing urban roads,
etc.) as well as developing countries. This type of machine is similar to and derived from what is
now known as a TLB (Tractor-Loader-Backhoe), which is to say, an agricultural tractor fitted with
a front loader and rear backhoe attachment.

Bulldozer

A bulldozer is a tractor equipped with a substantial metal plate (known as a blade) used to push
large quantities of soil, sand, rubble, or other such material during construction or conversion
work and typically equipped at the rear with a claw-like device (known as a ripper) to loosen
densely compacted materials. It is usually a crawler (continuous tracked) tractor. Bulldozers can
be found on a wide range of sites, mines and quarries, military bases, heavy industry factories,
engineering projects and farms.

Skid-steer loader

A skid loader is a small, rigid-frame, engine-powered machine with lift arms used to attach a
wide variety of labor-saving tools or attachments. Skid-steer loaders are typically four-wheel
vehicles with the wheels mechanically locked in synchronization on each side, and where the
left-side drive wheels can be driven independently of the right-side drive wheels. The wheels
typically have no separate steering mechanism and hold a fixed straight alignment on the body
of the machine. Turning is accomplished by differential steering, in which the left and right wheel
pairs are operated at different speeds, and the machine turns by skidding or dragging its
fixed-orientation wheels across the ground. The extremely rigid frame and strong wheel
bearings prevent the torsional forces caused by this dragging motion from damaging the
machine.

Motor grader

A motor grader, is a construction machine with a long blade used to create a flat surface during
the grading process. Although the earliest models were towed behind horses or other powered
equipment, most modern graders contain an engine, so are known, technically erroneously, as
“motor graders”. Typical models have three axles, with the engine and cab situated above the
rear axles at one end of the vehicle and a third axle at the front end of the vehicle, with the
blade in between. Most motor graders drive the rear axles in tandem, but some also add front
wheel drive to improve grading capability. Many graders also have optional attachments for the
rear of the machine which can be ripper, scarifier, blade, or compactor.

Trencher

A trencher is a piece of construction equipment used to dig trenches, especially for laying pipes
or electrical cables, for installing drainage, or in preparation for trench warfare. Trenchers may
range in size from walk-behind models, to attachments for a skid loader or tractor, to very heavy
tracked heavy equipment.

Loader

A loader is a heavy equipment machine used in construction to move aside or load materials
such as asphalt, demolition debris, dirt, snow, feed, gravel, logs, raw minerals, recycled
material, rock, sand, woodchips, etc. into or onto another type of machinery (such as a dump
truck, conveyor belt, feed-hopper, or railroad car). There are many types of loader, which,
depending on design and application, are called by various names, including bucket loader,
front loader, front-end loader, payloader, scoop, shovel, skip loader, wheel loader, or skid-steer.

Wheel tractor-scraper

A wheel tractor-scraper is a piece of heavy equipment used for earthmoving. The rear part of
the scraper has a vertically moveable hopper with a sharp horizontal front edge which can be
raised or lowered. The front edge cuts into the soil, like a carpenter’s plane cutting wood, and
fills the hopper. When the hopper is full it is raised, closed, and the scraper can transport its load
to the fill area where it is dumped. With a type called an ‘elevating scraper’ a conveyor belt
moves material from the cutting edge into the hopper.

Dragline excavator

A dragline excavator is a piece of heavy equipment used in civil engineering and surface
mining. Draglines fall into two broad categories: those that are based on standard, lifting cranes,
and the heavy units which have to be built on-site. Most crawler cranes, with an added winch
drum on the front, can act as a dragline. These units (like other cranes) are designed to be
dismantled and transported over the road on flatbed trailers. Draglines used in civil engineering
are almost always of this smaller, crane type. These are used for road, port construction, pond
and canal dredging, and as pile driving rigs.

Paver

A paver (paver finisher, asphalt finisher, paving machine) is a piece of construction equipment
used to lay asphalt on roads, bridges, parking lots and other such places. It lays the asphalt flat
and provides minor compaction before it is compacted by a roller.

Compactor
A compactor is a machine or mechanism used to reduce the size of material such as waste
material or biomass through compaction. A trash compactor is often used by a home or
business to reduce the volume of trash it produces. A baler-wrapper compactor is often used for
making compact and wrapped bales in order to improve logistics. Normally powered by
hydraulics, compactors take many shapes and sizes. In landfill sites for example, a large tractor
(typically a converted front end loader with some variant of a bulldozer blade attached) with
spiked steel wheels called a landfill compactor is used to drive over waste deposited by waste
collection vehicles (WCVs).