Technology has advanced significantly when it comes to the mining and construction industries. Gone are the days of complete manual labour when building edifices or burrowing deep underground as machines become advanced enough and strong enough to increase productivity over a large scale. There are vehicles just for mining that are so large they eclipse even the Statue of Liberty.
Companies such as Babcock International, Caterpillar, and John Deere create equipment for a wide range of needs - from diggers to trucks - but there are some machines that are designed and created with very specific operations in mind.
Here are a few of those awesome (in the large sense) construction and mining machines, and one or two that are just large by nature.
This gargantuan machine is not only one of the largest pieces of construction equipment ever created, but also one of the most specialised. The bucket wheel excavator was built in 1995 and is currently used at a brown coal mine in Germany.
The machine stands at a whopping 96 meters in height, which is three meters taller than the famous French-gifted Statue of Liberty. It also weighs 14 200 tonnes, and apparently requires five people to operate it. It’s not the only monolith in the Bagger family, with the 1978 Bagger 288 being equally impressive and massive as well.
Another German invention, this mobile crane is an absolute beast with its ability to lift 1200 metric tonnes, which is around 700 cars in weight. It also, apparently, has the longest telescopic boom in the world, which extends 100 meters.
Its mobile ability, which takes up two lanes on the road due to its width and sheer size, means that it’s not the strongest crane in the world, which usually falls to stationary machines. Even so, there’s a chance you’ll see this around shipyards or skyscraper construction sites.
From the company that doesn’t just create hard drives for PCs, the Hitachi EX8000-6 is one of the largest mobile construction vehicles around. Looking like a standard arm digger, but several times the size of those that are used in the building of houses.
Weighing in at 811 tonnes, this monster of a machine is able to reach a depth of 20 meters, while having a bucket capacity of 45 m3 and a shovel capacity of 40 m3. Though this is a diesel machine, there is an electronic equivalent - the EX8000E-6 - which is equipped with two 2400kW motors.
While a little different to the other entries on this list, the Bluewhale 1 is the largest and most advanced ultra-deepwater drilling rig and was created by several Chinese firms. It’s also an entire operations facility with a height of 118 meters and a weight of 42 000 tonnes. If you’re looking to purchase one for yourself, well you’ll need to lay out a cool $700 million for its production.
The Bluewhale 1 has an operating depth of 12 000 feet (or 3658 meters), and can drill up to 50 000 feet (or 15 240 meters). Apparently, it also uses 10 percent less fuel that other vehicles in its class.
Created by Dutch company Vanku B.V., this feat of modern engineering has one task: building roads. It is often compared to 3D printers in the way it functions. Using three operators, bricks are fed into the Vanku B.V., which, in turn, lays down a complete road.
While human pavers are able to lay between 75 and 100 square meters of paved road a day, this machine dramatically increases that number up to 400. Once it lays down the bricks, the process is finished off with a steamroller to make sure everything is securely in place. It eliminates physical stress placed on workers that need to constantly bend down in order to lay the bricks. It’ll only cost you around $110 00 for a finished machine.
There are many more massive and impressive machines in the construction and mining sectors. Even looking to agriculture, you’ll see an array of impressive devices with all manner of functionality.