Construction Equipment refers to heavy-duty vehicles, specially designed for executing construction tasks, most often ones involving earthwork operations.
The following is a list of different heavy construction equipments,
• There are three types of power shovel, crawler-mounted, truck-mounted, wheel mounted.
• It is used to excavate earth of all classes except rock and load it into the wagon.
• It is useful to excavate the soil at or above the operating level of the ground.
• Dragline type of excavator is used for digging at or below the operating level.
• They are used to excavate soft earth.
• The basic part of the dragline is the mounting, cab, boom, hoist cable, dump cable, bucket, drag cable, etc.
Dragline is useful under the following conditions:
1. The bottom conditions are wet. i. e. dredging in river beds.
2. The ground to be excavated is soft medium-hard.
3. The digging is to be done well below the ground level.
4. The stuff is to be dumped as far from the unit as possible.
• It is used to excavate soft materials and loose materials at or below the existing ground surface.
• It consists of a bucket of two halves which are hinged together at the top. The bucket is allowed to reach on the top of the loose material to be dug. As the bucket is lifted, the two halves close entrapping the material into the bucket.
• It is also used for stockpiling.
• These machines excavate trenches of constant width with accuracy and speed. Width of trenches ranged from 250 to 450 mm, while depth up to 4m.
• Trenches for mains, gas lines, oil pipes lines, telephone cables, drain ditches, sewers, etc. are dug with the help of a trenching machine.
• These machines are generally crawler mounted. These machines can either wheel type or ladder types
• It is used to excavate below the natural surface to keep precise control depth of excavation at close range work.
• It can exert high tooth pressures and hence can excavate stiff material when normally cannot be excavated by dragline or power shovel.
• A hoe is used to dig at moderate depths and the outputs of hoe decrease with an increase in depth.
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• It is an important piece of equipment for the earth’s movement.
• They are either: Crawler mounted or wheel types.
• Crawler mounted tractor is used for uneven and rough ground. When tractor operates best on smooth roads.
• Tractors are used to pull or push other equipment. Hence they are provided with various attachments such as dozer, scraper, narrow, plow, etc.
• A bulldozer is one type of the tractor, fitted with a blade at the front.
• It is used to move, compress, or tear the material.
• It is used for the following purposes:
i) To clear the site of work.
iv) it is used to excavate the material and haul for a distance of about 100m.
• The main function of the grader is leveling and finishing of earthwork.
• It is used for the maintenance of earth roads.
• A blade can be attached to the grader.
• The equipment consists of a large bucket called the scraper and is attached to a tractor. Its capacity varies from 3 to 9 m3.
• The scraper has a cutting edge or blade at the bottom and it is possible to dig earth to a depth of about 25 cm.
• The scraper ‘combines three operations, namely, digging, conveying and dumping.
• It is used to break up the ground and to pull up the roots.
• The loosened material can then be removed by the scraper.
• It is sometimes, attached to a tractor. It can be used to level the bed of rock mine.
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• It is used for long-distance transportation.
• These are suitable for laying materials in layers.
• Suitable for the construction of earthen darns, embankments, highways, etc.
• Used for transporting sand, gravel, aggregates, earth, etc.
• It is suitable for transporting material for short distances on rough roads.
• It is suitable to transport material in a narrow gorge.
• In this method, a carrier (bucket) moves on one or two cables.
• In this method, a bucket is suspended from wires supported on towers at the ends.
• It is suitable for long-distance transportation.
• It is used to transport sand, aggregate, concrete, soil, etc. from one place to another, continuously at a constant rate.
• It is suitable for uneven ground.
• They are used for transporting material in a horizontal or inclined direction.
• Suitable for transportation of liquid or semi-liquid matters.
• Used for transportation from a higher level to the lower level.
• It is used for transporting concrete.
• Its capacity is 4 to 9 cu. ft.
• It works on the smooth and hard road surface.
• They are used in big construction projects for lifting heavy loads.
• It is used for loading and unloading of materials in coal mines.
• Also, they are used to the load from ground level and place it into the trucks.
• These are cranes of swing jib type and are mounted on high steel towers.
• The height of the tower maybe 25 to 30 m and these cranes are found to be suitable in the construction of the tall buildings in congested areas.
• The ground is required for such cranes are very small.
• A winch is a mechanism in the shapes of a cylinder or drum, over which rope or chain is wound.
• Sometimes it is used only for raising and lowering. It is sometimes referred to as a host.
• The winches are of two types. Hand winches and power winches.
• It is also called an elevator.
• It is useful for lifting concrete from ground level to the higher floor in the construction of multistoried buildings.
• It is, suitable for buildings up to 50 stories.
They are used for crushing rocks to obtain aggregates of different sizes.
• In a ball mill, metal rods are fixed in a metal cylinder.
• Stone pieces are fed into the cylinder and fine aggregates are obtained at the outlet.
• Sometimes, instead of steel rods, steel balls are fed into the cylinder, then it is called ‘ball.
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Screens are used to separate out an aggregate of different sizes.
Types of the screen are:
• Internal vibrators are the most widely used concrete vibrator.
• This vibrator comes up with a needle that vibrates.
• Vibrators are generally used to compact concrete by removing air pockets left in the concrete.
• The main advantages of needle vibrators are that it can go deep in a section like a column deep formwork.
• Surface vibrators are generally used for a thin section like road and bridge slab
• Platform vibrators are mainly used for vibrating prefabricated structural members.
• Form vibrators are generally used in a cast in situ modular construction.
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