L12: Bucket Wheel Excavator 17/10/2024

Bucket Wheel Excavator

Course Instructor
Dr. Sunita Mishra
Assistant Professor
Department of Mining Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
Kharagpur, West Bengal - 721302.

History
• Initially the machine was used for purposes other than mining, i.e. as a dredger in the
River Weser of Germany.
• In 1836, it appeared in the form of Lubeck mud mill.
• In1881, workable bucket wheel excavators in a simple form and shape were found to
operate in the USA, where two free cutting bucket wheels were used on either side of a
continuous conveyor. They used to discharge sideways.
• In 1883 another design came up with the conveyor placed just behind the bucket wheel,
but this was rejected due to various practical difficulties.
• In 1905 another idea came into being, where cutting wheels were arranged in front of a
bucket chain, but this idea failed to give impetus to the development.
• In 1913, a wheel was designed, with a number of buckets arranged on common axis of
rotation in such away that while turning they dumped the material automatically on a
conveyor. It was an old concept, but special shape was given for the bucket cell chute.
• Commercial production of the machine, was started as early as 1936. Germany is the
leading manufacturer of such type of machines.
• The countries which are using these machines include Czechoslovakia, Germany, India,
Poland, Romania, the UK, the USA, the USSR and Yugoslavia.

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General Construction
• Series of bucket are attached to the periphery of a wheel which
is rotated during cutting action.
• This wheel, on rotation, digs and cuts the material and
simultaneously discharges it on to a conveyor known as boom
conveyor.
• This wheel is mounted at the top of the boom.
• The boom is held in position either by hydraulic jacks from the
bottom of the boom or by a rope arrangement attached from a
suitable position.
• The boom end (opposite the bucket) is placed on the turntable.
• The equipment consists of a transfer boom which discharges
the materials to the conveyor or to the dumping pit as the case
may be.
• In addition to these, it has another boom known as a counter-
weight boom where counter- weights are placed to balance the
equipment during the operation.
• All these booms are mounted on a turntable, which is capable of
rotating about a central axis passing through the centre of the
turntable.

General Construction

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L12: Bucket Wheel Excavator 17/10/2024

General Construction
• The machine can be classified into two types.
• Rail-mounted bucket wheel excavator.
• Crawler-mounted bucket-wheel excavator.
• The crawler-mounted bucket-wheel excavators are mostly
used in mining projects as against rail- mounted bucket
wheel excavators that are rarely used.
• These equipments are specified by bucket size.
• This is the inner volume of a single bucket placed on the
periphery of the wheel.
• The usual sizes are 350, 500 700, 1137 and 1400 litres.
• A maximum bucket size of as high as 6300 litres is also
available.

General Construction

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Components
The equipment consists of the following main components/ system:
1. Bucket Wheel
2. Wheel Boom and Conveyor
3. Transfer Conveyor and Boom
4. Counter-weight and equalizer boom
5. Swing or slewing system
6. Luffing arrangement
7. Travel mechanism
8. Undercarriage unit
9. Lubrication system

Bucket Wheel
There are three types of buckets:
• Cell type: Here each bucket is provided with individual cell chutes, lined
with wear plates. The chute received material from the bucket and
discharges it on to an inclined plate and ultimately to the conveyor belt.
• Semi-Cell type: Here the bucket is provided with cell chute lined with wear
plates. The chute receives material from the bucket and discharges it to the Cell type
conveyor. The chute is in the form of a transversely inclined plate.
• Cell-less type: There is no individual chute here. The material is
discharged on to a common hopper, which is not an integral part of the
bucket.
• Buckets are usually rigidly held on the circumference of a circular
ring. The circular ring on the other hand mounted on a hub which Semi-Cell type
is keyed to a shaft.
• In the cell type bucket, discharge capacity is less as material
acceptance is more and discharging time from each bucket is
less. Hence, the cutting speed are limited.
• This difficulty is somewhat avoided by the semi-cell bucket. But in Cell-less type
this design the overall capacity of the machine decreases.
• In the cell-less type, the material is allowed to discharge into the
ring chute, which ultimately discharges on to a fixed chute. This
design permits greater cutting and bucket speed.
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Bucket Wheel

Bucket Wheel Excavator

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Bucket Wheel Excavator

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Wheel Boom and Conveyor

• The bucket discharges the excavated materials on this
conveyor through a rotary plate.
• The rotary plate helps in allowing the materials to flow freely
from the bucket to the conveyor.
• This plate is placed at an incline to the conveyor so that the
materials falling on the plate are ultimately transferred to the
conveyor.
• The conveyor is supported totally by the boom structure.
• The drive is usually employed at the opposite end of the
bucket.
• The top end of the boom contains the bucket wheel and its
drive.
• The bottom end is pin joined onto the turntable.
• The boom is held in position either by a rope system which is
attached from the top or the boom by a hydraulic jack fitted at
the lower end of the boom.
• The boom can be moved up and down by ±30° about
horizontal axis.

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Transfer Conveyor and Boom

• The wheel boom conveyor discharges materials to the transfer conveyor.
• This transfers the materials either to the surface conveyors or to the dumping
point.
• This conveyor is also supported by a separate structural framework, which is
usually held by a rope winch system at the outer end, while the inner end rests on
the turntable on a pin joint.
• This is capable moving in a vertical plane by about 10°-15° below the
horizontal level.

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Counter-Weight Boom
• This boom help in countering the imbalance during the cutting action of the
machine.
• There are two type of counter-weight boom:
• Fixed counter-weight boom
• Movable counter-weight boom.
• They are usually mounted on the turntable and in such a way that the boom,
conveyor, bucket and counter-weight boom all are, more or less, in one vertical
plane.

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Fixed Counter-Weight Boom

• The system consists of a centre part with the counterweight boom firmly
connected with the platform of the upper structure and the bucket wheel boom is
hinged to this assembly and moved by a lifting winch uniting both assemblies.
• The essential advantage of this system is the fact that the centre of gravity of the
whole upper structure resulting from the dead weight is changed only by the
lifting and lowering motion of the bucket wheel boom.
• The electrical equipment of this system is preferably accommodated in the
vicinity of the counter-weight by which arrangement not only is the overall weight
of the machine reduced but also the design is kept compact.
• This is insensitive to vibrations and thus suitable for large boom lengths.
• This, however, requires heavy expenditure.

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Movable Counter-Weight Boom

• This design differs from the earlier design in that the counter-weight can be
moved up and down in the vertical plane through an arc by a rope-winch system.
• This varies the lever arm of the counter weight from the centre of gravity of the
machine, thereby adjusting the moment required to balance the stability of the
machine.

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Comparison of Fixed and Movable Counter-Weight Boom

Fixed Boom Movable Boom
1. Subject to less variation 1. Load on the bucket can be varied.
2. Balancing is not a problem. 2. Luffing or lifting range is more.
3. Less skill is required for operation. 3. The control can be done precisely.
4. Less operational noise.
5. Less moving parts hence wear, and
tear is also less.
6. Variation of centre of gravity is small.
7. This can accommodate prime movers
and other parts, hence overall weight
is less.

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Comparison of Rope-Winch versus Hydraulic System

Rope Winch Hydraulic System

1. Simple in construction. 1. Operation is very smooth.
2. Can be easily repaired. 2. Maintenance cost is less.
3. Less Noise.
4. Precise controlled.

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Luffing Arrangement
• Lowering and raising of the boom along with the bucket wheel is termed as
luffing.
• This is achieved by the following three methods:
• Hydraulic System
• Rope-Winch arrangement
• Combination of rope-winch and hydraulic system

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Hydraulic System
• Two hydraulic jacks are attached from the lower part of the boom as indicated in
Figure.
• The jacks are mounted on the turntable.
• They are operated by a separate hydraulic system and are usually employed for
small capacity equipment.

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Rope Winch Arrangement

• This is mostly preferred in high capacity equipment.
• Winches and their driving motors are placed on the platform of a counter-weight boom.
• This also adds some weight to the counter weight structure.
• Two rope system are used here.
• The ropes begin from fixed point and after passing over the fixed pulleys (which are
properly placed), are wound over the surface of a winch drum.
• This winch drum is usually powered by electric motors.
• Clockwise rotation of the drum wraps the rope over its surface, thereby allowing the boom
to be lifted.
• Counter-wise rotation of the drum lowers the boom with help of gravity.

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Combination of Rope-Winch & Hydraulic System

• In this system the advantages of both rope and hydraulic systems are exploited.
• The rope attachment simply suspends the wheel boom, while a hydraulic
arrangement controls the luffing action by retracting and extending the piston-
cylinder arrangement operated by a separate hydraulic circuit controlled from the
operator’s cabin.
• Figure shows the piston-cylinder arrangement operated by a separate hydraulic
circuit controlled from the operator’s cabin.
• The Figure shows this arrangement which has already been mentioned in the
hydraulic lifting mechanism with fixed counter-weight boom.

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Swing Mechanism
This consists of the following units:
• Swing motor, gear box and pinion.
• Ball race with ring or bull gear.
• The swing motor is an infinitely variable DC motor with adjustable voltage
armature control. For medium size machines, the number of motors is two and for
large size machines the number is four. The motor power varies from 16 to 120
kW. In some cases, hydraulic motors are also used.
• The motor drives the swing pinion through the gear box and is in constant mesh
with the ring gear, which is bolted to the undercarriage unit.
• The slew ball race is centrally mounted between the under-carriage and the
superstructure and its two halves are equipped with catch hooks which prevent
superstructure from lifting off the undercarriage.

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Wheel Drive Mechanism

• The bucket wheel is driven by a gearing arrangement
flanged into the wheel shaft and mounted on the wheel
boom.
• There is an intermediate gearing coupled with the
bucket wheel gearing by means of universal joints.
• At the intermediate gearing, the main motor provides the
bucket wheel drive.
• A turbo-coupling is installed between the main motor
and the intermediate gear as a safety against the
overloading of the drive.
• This coupling permits the imposing of a load on the
wheel until the wheel stalls without causing any damage
or danger to the machine.
• Three different speed settings are available. These are
indicated by a selector switch in the wheel-operator’s
cabin.

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Undercarriage Unit
• This is a closed, rigid steel structure with fixed axles, which are mounted in
crawler frames.
• The ball race and ring gear for slewing of the super structure are centered and
bolted to the upper side of the undercarriage.
• The interior of the under frame accommodates a slip ring assembly for power
transmission to the revolving structure.
• At the slew centre, a pivot column serves for mounting of the discharge boom.
• A cable reel is installed on the brackets of the undercarriage.
• A central grease pump for the lubrication of the crawler assembly and oil pump
for the slew ball race are located in the undercarriage unit.

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Cable Reel
• This is usually designed for about 800 m length of an 11 kV excavator cable and
has a diameter of 1.5 m.
• The cable is reeled by a winding device placed at right angles to the reel axis and
horizontally to the two sides, so that the machine can travel past the power
infeed point. The length of travel is thus about 1600 m.

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Lubrication System
The bucket wheel lubrication system can be divided into the following divisions:
• Central Lubrication Plant
• Gear Lubrication Unit
• Ball race lubrication unit.

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Turntable or Platform
• This is of solid plate construction, carrying the prime-mover ballast box and tower.
• Located on the tower is the wheel- operator’s cabin.
• The prime - mover house accommodates the electrical plant, diesel set with tank
for power supply in travel and the hydraulic plant.
• Attached to the tower are the wheel boom and the discharge boom.
• The slew assembly is mounted on the platform.

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Next Class: Shovel

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