The Largest Car In The World - Alternative View

The Largest Car In The World - Alternative View
The Largest Car In The World - Alternative View

Video: The Largest Car In The World - Alternative View

Video: The Largest Car In The World - Alternative View
Video: Biggest Vehicles Ever Made 2024, March
Anonim

In the first "Star Wars", the imagination of the audience was agitated by the Sandcrawler, a huge "house" that propels itself on many giant caterpillars. But few people know that when Lucas' famous film was being created, a self-propelled "object" was being built in Germany, much larger than the fantastic sandy ship.

This monster was built by the German company ThyssenKrupp Fordertechnik back in 1978, but it still remains the largest excavator in the world, continuing to work in one of the coal mines in Germany.

The main purpose of the giant apparatus is to remove the top layer of the earth to open coal seams. This is exactly what he did immediately after the construction in the Hambach quarry, which is located in the west of Germany. In addition, if necessary, he is also able to extract coal itself, but his main job is precisely the removal of the upper layers of the earth.

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Its name is Bagger 288. Its weight is about 13.5 thousand tons, length - 240 meters, height - 96 meters (approximately like a 35-storey building), and width - 46 meters.

Bagger - in German - this is an excavator, in this case - a rotary excavator.

The rotor alone, with which this monster cuts the coal seam, is able to inspire awe.

A still from the film "Avatar" - actually close to reality
A still from the film "Avatar" - actually close to reality

A still from the film "Avatar" - actually close to reality!

Promotional video:

The rotor height is equal to an eight-story building.

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The rotor consists of 18 buckets of 6.6 cubic meters each. This wheel makes 48 revolutions per minute. In a day, he shovels 240 thousand cubic meters of rock, which approximately corresponds to the filling of a football stadium bowl to the height of a 10-storey building.

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One of the most interesting aspects of the design is the power supply of the giant. What kind of engines can move it from its place? It turns out that the tracks, the rotor and other mechanisms are driven by a host of electric motors, with a total capacity of tens of megawatts - like a small town. The excavator draws this energy from the industrial power grid through a long, thick cable.

But what if the car needs to move to a new work site? This is a whole entertaining story.

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Intersection of Federal Highway 55 during the famous 2001 22 km crossing

Talking about moving within a quarry is not interesting. In the life of this machine there was one case when it moved 22 kilometers under its own power - from one open pit to another.

Straight through the fields, federal highways, several small highways and streams, power lines and one railway line.

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It was in 2001 when the super excavator first changed jobs from the Hambach quarry to the Garzweiler quarry.

So that's it. On board Bagger 288 is a huge reel of power cable, one kilometer long. As it moved, it was connected to various sections of the industrial power grid.

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I must say that thanks to 12 tracks 3.8 meters wide, the monster's ground pressure is 1.7 kilograms per square centimeter, so the colossus could well walk through the fields.

But, interestingly, the necessary areas were sown with grass in advance. So that the soil during rains is not oversaturated with moisture and retains its bearing capacity. And in many places sand "pillows" were also poured.

The roads and the railway line were covered with sand and rubble a meter high, while traffic was stopped for only half a day - so quickly gravel “cushions” were poured and removed. The rivers were also covered with stones.

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Power transmission cables, under which, of course, such a giant could not pass, were dismantled and immediately put back as soon as the monster passed by. During this time, energy suppliers sent it to consumers through alternative networks.

In general, we did it in 3 weeks. That's fast when you consider that the Bagger 288 has a top speed of 10 meters per minute.

By the way, in that significant transition, two rotary excavators made the journey from quarry to quarry at once, but our hero's brother was somewhat smaller and more than one and a half times lighter, so his step did not cause such a stir.

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But the movement of Bagger 288 gathered hundreds of onlookers day and night. It should be added to the description of the machine that a shift of four people is working on it at the same time. There are three shifts in total, so the colossus works around the clock.

These are two excavator operators, replacing each other, the coordinator of the belt conveyors that supply coal from the rotor to the loading site, and the head of the squad.

So that during a many-hour shift they do not have to descend from heaven (and what else can you call a colossus as high as a modest skyscraper) to the ground - right inside the excavator there is a wardroom with a toilet and a kitchen, a large supply of water.

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The excavator sits in a small booth located not far from the rotor, directly on the giant "arm" of the structure. He controls the machine (both the rotor and the movement of the entire colossus) using joysticks reminiscent of computer ones. He is assisted by navigation and video surveillance systems.

This work is not so simple: you need to make sure that the buckets are optimally filled, the walls of the cut go smoothly and do not collapse, so that the rotor is not damaged by foreign inclusions (hard rocks that are found in layers), and so on.

While one excavator operator is “at war with coal,” the other does not sit idle - he goes around the car along numerous stairs and passages, monitors the state of the mechanisms, corrects and cleans something.

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The senior of the group also does not get bored - he develops a "battle strategy", and it is especially interesting when he has to go down and "pave the way" for a monster moving from one section of the quarry to another.

In general, the car worked out by the Germans commands respect. This is one of those structures that are respectfully referred to as "real Krupp steel". Remember the supergiant cannons of the First and Second World Wars? Apparently that experience came in handy.

And the machine was made literally for a century - according to the forecast of experts, if there are no unforeseen circumstances, this excavator will work until its hundredth birthday.

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Bagger 288 is not only a bucket wheel excavator for mining, but also a home. To get down from the workplace, which is practically at the very top, the worker will have to go a long way. Therefore, a small apartment was built inside the giant for rest and satisfying the needs of the working people.

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The Bagger 288 excavator requires an external power source in the form of a 16.5 MW power plant. Every day, the machine is capable of digging a hole the size of a football field and a depth of 30 m. The Bagger 288 moves on three tracked bases, each track being 3.8 m wide. That is why, despite the titanic weight of the machine, the pressure it exerts on a square centimeter of soil is very small, allowing the excavator to drive over open ground, gravel and even grass without leaving deep marks.

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The largest machines can be recorded as Bagger 293, built in 1995. Its weight was 14,200 tons, the dimensions remained the same as those of its predecessor. So there is a controversial first place. The number of buckets was increased to 20 with a volume of 15 cubic meters.

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What's stuck there !?

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Well, where, where, in a circle!

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The main thing is that we do not wait for something like this in the near future.