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- Dragline Excavators and Mining Equipment
- Essential Parts
- Limitations
- How to prepare your excavator for transport
- Experienced and Efficient Dragline Excavator Transport
- Convenient Services
- Relevant Statistics
- General Facts
- Personalized Rates
- SOURCES Dragline excavator
Dragline excavators can either be built off of regular lifting cranes, or they're constructed on-site (for larger units). The smaller types are typically employed as construction equipment in civil engineering projects like road building, waterway dredging, or drive pylons. The larger designs are some of the largest mobile land machines that are most often used in the mining industry (1), especially for mining operations like coal and oil sands strip mining.
Dragline Excavators and Mining Equipment
Dragline excavators fall into two major categories; one that operates as a standard lifting crane, and the heavy cranes that are built on the side of a construction or mining site. Most crawler cranes with an added winch drum to their front can act as a dragline. These are usually designed to be dismantled for road transport using flatbed trailers, lowboys, or step deck trailers.
Essential Parts
The dragline excavator consists of parts like the boom, bucket, motor-driven hoist rope, drag rope, and driving motors. The connection of several ropes and chains controls the large bucket. The bucket is attached to a dragline boom which is a truss-like structure.
The dragline bucket system consists of a large number of ropes and chains. The hoist rope supports the bucket and hoist-coupler assembly from the boom. There's also a drag rope used to draw the bucket assembly horizontally.
Limitations
Some of the limitations of dragline excavators are their boom height and boom length, they limit where the dragline can dump waste material effectively. Also, the dig depth is limited, you may experience difficulties as a result of the limited length of the rope associated with the machinery.
Transport of large dragline excavators isn't common, as they are purpose-built on-site, especially mining sites, and weigh anywhere from 8,000 - 13,000 tons. In contrast, their smaller counterparts are often transported - as they are built to be dismantled and loaded onto trailers to shipped to their destination by professional heavy haul drivers.
How to prepare your excavator for transport
To transport your excavator safely to or from a job site, there are a few things you need to do.
Get your excavator ready by following the loading procedures specified in the manufacturer manuals of both the excavator and the loading vehicles.
Choose a trailer that is appropriate for the size of your excavator. It's also important that the towing vehicle has the ability to support the weight and width of your machinery. Generally, a trailer with a capacity for 10,000 lbs of weight will be suitable for smaller excavators while larger excavators can be transported with trailers capable of supporting up to 20,000 lbs of weight.
Before you load, add supports to the rear of the trailer to balance its weight and prevent the trailer from rising during loading. Get rid of dirt, mud, and sand from the undercarriage of the excavator.
Move the front end of the excavator to the trailer ramp first. This is usually the heaviest past, especially if the excavator has fitted attachments.
Before you leave the site, lower parts like the boom, arm, bucket, and blade to the trailer's floor. To prevent movement during transit, chain the front and rear of your excavator using the machine's tie-down points.
If you are transporting your dragline equipment across international borders like Canada and Mexico, you will need to know about customs requirements and paperwork. But no worries, once you hire experts, they will take care of everything for you. You can contact customer support for more information.
Experienced and Efficient Dragline Excavator Transport
If you're in the market for transportation of your dragline excavator, it's likely that you have a smaller model. We're adept at securing the many different components and pieces involved in such a move - and we have the trailers and trucks necessary to haul overweight items. Proper securing is also vital, and we know the ratings and regulations - so your shipment doesn't shift during transit.
Convenient Services
We also offer on-time delivery, GPS tracking of your shipment, and door-to-door service. Nationwide and international shipping is available for your convenience as well. Our expertise also ensures that you don't experience any issues - and the comprehensive insurance included with all of our shipments, makes the process stress free.
Relevant Statistics
- The global demand for dragline excavators has increased by 27% in the past five years.
- Approximately 92% of dragline excavators are transported via maritime shipping.
- The average weight of a dragline excavator is around 8.4 million pounds (3.8 million kilograms).
- Over 78% of dragline excavators are manufactured in Asia.
- The cost of shipping a dragline excavator internationally can range between $150,000 and $500,000, depending on the distance and logistics involved.
General Facts
- Dragline excavators are heavy equipment used for large-scale excavation and mining projects.
- Shipping a dragline excavator requires specialized transportation methods due to its immense size and weight.
- The transportation process typically involves disassembling the dragline excavator into smaller components for easier shipping.
- Specialized trucks, cranes, and trailers are used to transport the disassembled parts of a dragline excavator to their destination.
- The reassembly of a dragline excavator is a complex process that requires skilled technicians and specialized equipment.
Personalized Rates
Rather than giving you an off-the-shelf rate, which doesn't reflect the services you actually need - we create a personalized price instead. This takes into account all the details of your move, from the size of the equipment to the distance it will be shipped. We provide nationwide transport services for all kinds of excavators including hydraulic excavator, mini excavator, and vacuum excavators whether they are moveable or non movable.
Give us a call today - to discover how we can help you, get your dragline excavator and other heavy equipment safely from A to B.
SOURCES: Dragline excavator
Frequently Asked Questions
Similar variables come into play for a dragline excavator, even if it's on a much larger scale than other pieces of heavy equipment. Things like fuel and distance naturally play a part.
It's not possible to get a close estimate, but it can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars to transport an excavator because so much planning and workforce go into it. The personnel works months in advance to ensure your cargo reaches its destination safely.
As mentioned, although usual flatbed trailers can reach 50 feet in length, even a smaller excavator will require the company to attach two of them. And it'll only get more complicated with bigger models.
First, instead of a flatbed, a lowboy trailer is most likely to be used because its four-axle variant can take up to 80,000 pounds, and since weight is calculated on a per-axle basis, it will be able to take it better.
A dragline excavator weighs around 4000 to 6000 tons, which puts it above the superload category. This means it's easily above 8,000,000 pounds, so only an experienced company can handle the process. You'll need to inform them beforehand.
In some cases, it might even require a few months of planning, especially since roads have to be considered.
It takes a while to transport a dragline excavator.
The main challenge is in the routes. Shipping companies need so long to iron out the logistics because there are few routes to accommodate such an expansive load.
Flatbed trailers are vast, but a dragline excavator is very heavy, so the company might have to arrange special trailers.
The driver needs to avoid sharp turns and narrow roads, and route surveys are conducted to find a wide path with less traffic that isn't affected by sudden or extreme weather changes like storms. All this preparation takes a while, not to mention roads are generally 12 feet wide while the excavator is between 130 and 330 feet wide.
Shipping a dragline excavator is rare, considering its highly high-weight category. And it simply isn't something ordinary people can handle, whether they're operating it or not.
It's the most prominent reason you should hire a shipping company. It's necessary to be careful while choosing, and you should ensure it's a legitimate and reliable transport company. Go on public forums and consult other people who've hired companies before.
Companies that can transport something as heavy as this excavator have a $2 million insurance, ensuring it's a valid deal. It is essential. You need to do your research to avoid losing thousands. Remember that you'll be paying a hefty sum for the transport, so be confident before you make the final decision.
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