Excavator as a drilling Machine

This post will look at one versatility of excavators and that is the converting and installing new parts to make the excavator into a drilling rig.

An excavator is in-fact a perfect drilling rig. With it's crawler base and hydraulic powered system. these two factors made it a good candidate to be converted into a versatile and self mobile drilling rig.

And as a drilling rig, it can be used to drill holes for piles and a well known application will be bored piles and micropiles. The drill head is powered by the on board hydraulic system with out much or major modification required.

The use of an excavator modified to drill micropiles has another advantage and this is the ability of the same machine to lift the micropile reinforcement and place it into the drilled hole before grouting. Thus this dispense the need of a second crane.

By the way we mentioned micropiles and these are use as foundation known as micropiles foundation. Below is a picture of a drilling rig modified from an excavator.

The above picture shows an excavator modified for drilling micropiles. Rather heavy duty and not likely to be used in a house backyard.

The Excavator - The most flexible machine

The excavator is one well known power machines and needless to say as they are so flexible in so many ways that is why they became so popular in many construction sites.

When I mentioned that they are flexible, it means that they can be adapted to do so many types of works. What makes them so flexible is the ability to swap attachments. The normal attachment is a bucket and even bucket wise, they can be changed to different types of bucket for different situation.

There are small width bucket for digging trenches to large buckets for quick loading of excavated materials. Even the bucket had attachment that can be swapped. See, bucket are designed with teeth that have detachable cover to protect the bucket from wear and tear. In hard materials, these covers can be changed.

Beside bucket the excavator can be attached with other attachment and powered off by the hydraulic system of the excavator. One such attachment is the jack hammer used in demolishing or breaking up of rocks.

Another attachment is the grabber again powered by the hydraulic system of the excavator. These power grabber can grab and cut metal just like a pair of scissors cutting up papers. Here they cut up metal pieces from cars to demolished buildings reinforcement.

Not forgetting the large electromagnet as an attachment as seen in junkyards where these machines are used to separate ferrous metals from non ferrous metal.

Thus you can see how flexible an excavator is or are. My next post will again at more flexibility of the excavators . . .drilling & vibrating . . .yep it has to do with the two mode.

Power Machines in Construction

When in come to construction sites, a vast variety of tools and equipment are used. From the simple nail and hammer to the gigantic tunneling machines that look like the "WORM" from the Dune story. Anyway one machine that will and often seen in construction sites is the excavator.

Now back in the old days excavators are huge machine and steam powered. However now they are diesel powered and runs by powered hydraulics system. And they can be big or tiny. Excavator in fact is one of the most versatile construction machine out there. It can be adapted to perform a large variety of task.

Off course the basic task of an excavator and as the name suggest is to excavate. Even thought this basic function it can be used to clear a site from vegetation, excavate trenches, move earth and digging as in mining process.

All digging is done with the help of an excavating bucket install at the tip of the arm boom. The bucket is powered by hydraulics thus enabling it to excavate into different types of soil materials.

And talking about size, it can be made into a small excavator or also known as mini-excavator. This can squeeze thought tight places or with limited head room. Some are specially design to work in tunnels or for underground multilevel basement construction.

Thus far we have talked about using excavators for excavation jobs in this article but as mentioned earlier this is not the only thing it can do. By just swapping the bucket with other tools, the excavator is "transformed" into a machine that can do other tasks.

There are many manufacturers of the modern excavators. Companies like Caterpillar, JGB, Hyundai and Kobelco are some of the well known ones.

In term of shape an excavator has the same make-up even if it is from different manufacturers. For example, it will have an undergarriage which can be tracks or wheels. Then on the top will be the operator cabin and beside or behine the cabin will be the power unit. Then there will be an hydraulic powered arms known as boom. This is how an excavator looks like as shown in the picture below.

Above a picture of a modern day hydraulic powered excavator.