The excavator is one of the most commonly used construction machines, because it is the most efficient machine for excavating large quantities of earth. The existence of excavators dates since the 1930s, and ever since then they have been used on the construction sites all over the world for a variety of purposes. The excavator is capable to complete the manual work of ten, twenty or even fifty workers in a single day. Regardless of where and for what the excavator is being used on a construction site, contractors rely heavily on the excavators for completing their tasks efficiently. With so many excavators on the market, the operators can use a specific excavator model for their specific tasks. However, the most commonly used excavators are the dragline excavator and the long reach excavator. Here is a brief description for these two excavator models.
Dragline Excavator – The primary use of the dragline excavator is to excavate earth and other materials in surface mining and civil engineering. Most excavators use the strength of their arms to excavate, but this is not a case with the dragline excavator. This model use pressure to excavate earth from the ground. The dragline excavators are designed to be dismantled and transported by a purpose vehicles, and they come in different sizes for different jobs. The larger dragline excavators are mostly used for surface mining, while the smaller dragline excavators for civil engineering applications (road maintenance, road construction, road repair, etc.). The weight of the dragline excavator varies between 8,000 tons and 15,000 tons.
Long Reach Excavator – Another quite popular excavator model is the long reach excavator. This machine comes with a long arm and has similar design like the standard excavators. The name of this excavator comes from its ability to reach incredible heights. As the name suggests, this machine is ideal for reaching hard-access areas from safe distance. There are many difficult applications that can be effectively carried out by the long reach excavators. The arm of the long reach excavator is specifically designed to reach high buildings, and it is also quite efficient for demolition works. Once the arm is hooked on a building, the long reach excavator can drag the entire building down. This demolition technique is widely used, because it is safe and does not require explosive materials. The long reach excavator is a good alternative for a wrecking ball, and for machines that cannot be easily operated on the working site.
