Chapter-4

Familiarization with construction equipment

4.1 Advantage and disadvantage of using

equipment,
4.2 Equipments
for
Excavation,
Transporting and Compaction; Aggregate Production and
Handling; Concrete
Construction;
Cranes for Lifting; Tunnel
Construction;
Highway
and Pavement
Construction;
Hydraulic
Structure
Construction
4.3 Selection of Appropriate Equipment

4.1 Advantage and disadvantage of

using equipment,
Use of equipment in construction1. Works are progressed efficiently,
2. Quality can be ensured as stated in the specification,
3. Less nos. of workers involved and thereby safety
regarding labors is easier,
4. Wastage of materials is less,
5. Disruption due labor demands may be less,
6. Precision works can be done,
7. Certain works that needs compaction etc can be
obtained without extra expense as in earth filling,
8. Dangerous works to human can be done safely,

Continued-Disadvantage of equipment1. It needs operators trained,

2. It cost foreign currency,
3. People become dependants,
4. Environment can be disrupted,
5. Employments can be hampered, because the
equipment usually do more and faster works, whereby
labor intensiveness decreases,
6. Fuels shortage may hamper the construction,
7. Accessible to the site can be a problem for equipment,
8. Equipment transport is difficult in Nepal,

Equipment for excavations,

transportation and compactions
4.2

A. Equipment for excavation

1.Bull Dozer(bull=strong, Dozer=push)(2 types,
crawler mounted and wheel mounted)
Bull Dozer are very popular earth moving equipment
which can be used for the following jobs:
-Site clearance
-clearing vegetation
-shallow excavation
-moving earth for haulage up to 100 meters
-Maintaining haul roads
-Spreading earth fill
-Earth road maintenance
-Ripping()rock

2.scrapper():
They are the machines capable of cutting thin
layer of earth and taking some excavated
materials in its bowl to be discharged in
depressions uniformly. They can cut haul and
discharge materials by themselves. Scrappers are
not suitable in such location where the cutting
blade cannot work, like gravely and rocky strata.

3.Power shovel( ):
These are used primarily to excavate earth and load
onto trucks, tractor-pulled wagons or conveyor belts.
They are capable of excavating all classes of earth,
except solid rock, without prior loosening it. They are
either mounted on crawler tracks, referred to as
crawler mounted power shovels, which have very low
speed in traveling with wide treads give low soil
pressure. They may be mounted on rubber-tired
wheels, too.
Single engine self propelled units are powered and
operated from the excavator cab. The non-selfpropelled units mounted on the rear of the truck,
which are referred to as truck-mounted power
shovels have separate engine for operating them.

Dipper stick

Hoist Line

CAB
Boom

Dipper

Mounting

Crawler

Power shovels can be -Face shovel,

and Backhoe actor
Face shovel: It is also known as mechanical shovel or
navy. It is widely used machine for excavating
against a face or bank, consisting of an open, top
bucket or dipper with a bottom opening door, fixed
to an arm or dipper stick which slides and pivoted on
the jib of the crane.

fig:A composite backhoe actor (Left) and Face shovel

on the right

Backhoe actor
It is also called drag shovel, back shovel or truck
hoe. This is similar to face shovel except that the
dipper stick pivots on the end of the job and the
dipper or bucket work towards the chassis and
normally has no bottom door, but it is emptied by
swinging away from the chassis to invert the
bucket. Back actor is mainly used to excavate
trenches.

4.Excavator:
It has small hoe in its back.hoe is teeth attached
bucket. it is capable of excavating to a depth.
Excavation is done by teeth attached to a bucket,
which is also capable of loading the excavated
materials directly to the transporting vehicle. By
changing the bucket it can be converted to driller,
power sovel etc. Excavators are classified on
dragging motion. An upward motion unit is known
as shovel and downward motion is Hoe.

5.Drag line:
Draglines are used to excavate and load into
hauling units, such as trucks or tractor-pulled
wagons, or to deposit it in levees, dames, and
spoil banks near the pits from which it is
excavated.

The dragline is especially advantageous when earth is

removed from a ditch, canal, or pit containing water.
If the earth is hauled with trucks, they dont have to go
into the pit, and content with mud.
Dragline with a long enough boom can dispose the earth
in one operation, eliminating the need of hauling
units, which will reduce the cost of hauling the earth.
Draglines are excellent units for excavating trenches
when the sides are permitted to establish their angle
of repose, without shoring.

6.Grader:
Graders are basically the equipment meant to
grade the road surface and other large area. With
the help of teeth attached to them, they can
scarify earth surface to loosen the material which
can eventually be shifted forward or to the sides
by grading blades. These blades rotate up to 270
degree in the central ring making it unique to
shift the material on all sides.

7.clamshell
The name of this machine is derived from the
shape of bucket. The shape of bucket is hinged
double shell. It has a bucket attached which
performs the tasks such as digging, excavation
and lifting the material. Clamshells are used to
handle the loose material such as sand, gravel
and crushed stones. They can be used for lifting
the material from deep foundation. They can be
specially used to lift the material vertically.
Clamshell has most of the characteristics as of
drag line and some of the cranes.

B. Transporting equipment

Usually trucks are the transportation equipments.

Trucks, wagons and conveyor belts are hauling units .
Trucks may be classified according to a great many
factors, including the following1. Size and type of engine gasoline, diesel, butane,
propane etc,
2.Nos. of gears,
3. Kinds of drives,
4. Nos. of wheels and axles and arrangement of
driving wheels,
5. Methods of dumping loads rear dumps, side
dumps,
6.Class of materials hauled earth, rock, coal ore etc,
7.Capacity in tones,
8. Methods of dumping the loads for rear dump
hydraulic or
cable

Rear dump truck

Rear dump trucks are suitable for the use in hauling
many types of materials. The shape of the body
such as the extent of sharp angles, corners, and
the contour of the rear, through which materials
must flow during dumping, will affect the ease or
difficulty of dumping. Bodies of trucks that will be
used as hauling wet clay and similar materials
should be free of sharp angles and corners.

Bottom Dump Wagons

For the materials like sand, gravel,
reasonably dray earth, coal etc that flow
easily, if used in bottom dump wagons,
will reduce the time required to unload it.
Such transport units are particularly
suitable
where
the
materials
are
distributed in layers on a fill. When
discharging the loads onto fill, wagons can
dump their loads while moving. Difficulties
may be experienced in discharging such
materials which are wet, sticky clayey,
especially if they are large lump

Belt conveyor system

Belt conveyor systems are used
extensively
in
the
field
of
construction, where they frequently
provides the most satisfactory and
economical method of handling and
transporting materials, such as earth
sand, crushed stones, mine ores,
cement, concrete at relatively high
speeds, belt conveyors have high
capacities

Tractors
Tractors are primarily used to pull and push loads. They
are also used as mount for many types of accessories
such as front-ended shovel, rippers, bulldozer blades
etc.
Tractors are of the following two types 1. Crawler types,
2. Wheeled type
Crawler types
These are usually rated by size or weight and
power. The weight is important on many projects
because the maximum tractive effort that a unit can
provide is limited to the product of the weight times coefficient of traction of the unit and particular road
surface, regardless of the power supplied by the engine

Wheel tractor
It has usually has two-wheeled or four wheeled
tractor. One of its primary objectives as compared
with crawler tractor is the higher speed, possibly
30km in some models. High speed sacrifices
pulling efforts.
Because of lower tractor coefficient of traction
between rubber tires and some soil surfaces, the
wheel tractor may slip its wheels before
developing its rated pulling efforts.

C. Compacting equipments
-To increase density by applying weight
to the material
-The size of the spaces between the
individual particle will be decreased
-variety of compaction equipment
available
-type of equipment that the contractor
uses will depend on the material
being compacted

a)Steel wheel roller

-also referred as smooth wheel roller

-used for the compaction of sand, gravel, and

mixture of sand and gravel.
-2 types, static and vibratory
-Static rollers consists of smooth drum that can
be filled with water or sand to increase the
weight of roller
-vibratory rollers have motors attached to the
compactive wheel that vibrate the wheel as it
is rolling.
-steel wheel rollers come in several different
wheel configuration.

Fig: Single wheel steel wheel

roller

Fig: Tandem(containing 2
wheel) steel wheel roller

Fig: Three wheel

tandem roller

b)Sheep foot Rollers

-Also called padfoot rollers
-used to compact fine grained soils
such as clay and silts, as well as
mixture of sand and fine grained soils.
-sheep foot roller is a steel wheel that
has a number of steel projections, or
feet, welded to it.
-Roller compact the soil by kneading it.

Sheep footed
roller surface

Fig: sheep foot

roller

c)Pneumatic tire Rollers

-Pneumatic tire or rubber tire, rollers can
be used to compact almost all type of
soils.
-These rollers are also used to compact
bituminous pavement.
-Not useful for compacting aggregate.
-Pneumatic tire rollers have a number of
tires arranged in two rows.
-Tire may be small or large, although a
roller will have only one size of tire.
-Have odd number of tires.

Fig: Pneumatic tire

Roller

d)Manually operated compactors

-Have a number of different application.
-used In areas where it is not possible to use a
full size compactor.
-includes compacting the fill over a trench,
compacting soil around the footing, or working
in areas where large equipment might cause
damage to adjacent structures or property.
-Manually operated compactors come in a
number of different styles depending upon the
application
-There are small steel-wheel rollers, vibratory
plate compactors, and rammers.

Fig: vibratory plate

compactors

Fig: steel wheel Roller

Fig: rammers

AGGREGARE PRODUCTION AND HANDLING

equipment
The production of crushed stone aggregate involves-drilling
-blasting
-Loading
-transporting
-crushing
-screening
-product handling and storage
since the stone or boulders pass through certain stage the
crushers are also classified based on the stage of crushing as
a)Primary crushing
b)Secondary and tertiary crushing
c)Impact crushing

a)primary crushing: large material usually is

reduced in size by either a jaw or a
gyratory crusher. Both types are
compression crushers.
i)jaw crusher
Crushes by allowing stone to flow into space
between two jaws, one of which is stationary,
while other is movable
Stone is fed between two jaws openings bigger
at the top
Smaller jaw at bottom reduces the rocks to the
required size
Movable jaw exerts pressure which is required
to crush the rock

Fig: jaw crushers

ii) Gyratory crusher: Consists of a

heavy cast iron or steel frame with an
eccentric shaft and driving gear in the
lower part of the unit

Fig: gyratory crusher

b) Secondary and tertiary crushing: Secondary

and tertiary crushing, if necessary, are the final
steps in reducing the material to a desired
product size. Historically, cone and roll crushers
were the most common choice crushers, but in
recent years impact crushers are more widely
used. These crushers also are sometimes used as
primary crushers for fine-grained gravel deposits.
i)cone crusher
-Used as secondary or tertiary crushers
-Capable of producing large quantities of
uniformly fine crushed stone aggregate
-Rock are fed to the conical arrangement of the
crusher and the rotating shaft crushed it to finer
aggregate

ii)Roll crusher:
-Natural aggregate are drawn into the
gap between the rolls by their rotating
motion and are the crushed to the
desirable size
-Produce very fine product sixe and
they produce very little dust and fines
-Can be used as a tertiary crushers to
produce additional reductions in the
size of stone after the output of a
quarry has been subject to one or more
stages of prior crushing

c)Impact crushing:
-Larger aggregate are crushed to finer
aggregate by the repeated blows of
litter hammers arrangement inside the
crusher
-Impact force is applied rather than the
pressure force like other crushing
machine

Concrete Construction

Concrete Construction process:

1.Material Production
2.Storage
3.Batching
4.Mixing
5.Transportation
6.Placing
7.Compaction
8.Curing

Batching and mixing

Batching:
Process of proportioning different components
of concrete in required amount for mixing
Batching of aggregates and cements is best
done by weight
Weighting process of batching is more
accurate process
For small construction simple weighting scale
are commonly used where as for larger
concrete automatic batching plant are used

Materials Handling
Equipment
Manual
Manual batching is generally only acceptable for small jobs and
low output requirements
Done for less important construction

semi-automatic
semiautomatic should be used in semiautomatic arrangements,
the charging and discharging of the batchers are activated
manually, but are automatically terminated

fully automatic.
In a fully automatic system a single starter switch activates the
batching sequence
Can be done in large scale
Quantities can be controlled more precisely
Better concrete mix can be obtained

Manual Mixing

Semi Automatic

Automatic Mixing Batching

Plant

Concrete transporting
process

By hand
By manual buggies / power buggies
By dumper
By skip/bucket
By pump
Belt conveyor
Cableway
By chute
By Power Mixer
Ship/ Boat
By Air Helicopter

Manual buggies

Transportation Equipment

Compacting Equipments
Needle Vibrator

Plate Vibrator

Surface Vibrator

CRANES FOR LIFTING

Cranes are versatile and the most

widely used lifting equipments
Cranes provide three dimensional
movements
Perform with high speed, safety and
precision
Hoisting is the operation of lifting load
from one location, transporting it to
another location situated at a
reasonable distance and loading it
down.

Classification of cranes

1.Stationary Crane
2.Gantry Crane
3.Mobile Crane
4.Tower Crane
5.Heavy Lifting Crane

Stationary Crane

Also known as Derrick crane

Give large working radius
Steam, electric or diesel driven
May be used on a wide range of
works , from large civil works to
industrial building construction,
erection of plants, handling timber,
hoisting works at ship yards, loading
and unloading cargos at ports etc

Gantry Crane
To lifting and placing materials over a
rectangular area
Mechanism consists of a hoisting mechanism on
a carriage across a girder span
Girders resting on wheels travels longitudinally
on rails on an overhead gantry
The gantry crane is usually associated with
stockyard work, for example precast concrete
manufacturing where lifting facilities are
required to cover both the casting and storage
areas, for which portal structure is ideally suited.

Mobile Crane

Cranes mounted on truck

Due to their mobility they are highly
efficient when working in different
distant places

Tower Crane
Used in construction of multi-storied
building and in industries
Have high lifting capacity and large
working radius
Are fixed base type mounted on a
foundation block
The vertical limit up to which they
can safely rise is maximum free
standing

Tunnel Construction Equipments

Methods of Tunnel Boring

Conventional Methods
Tunneling by TBM (Tunnel Boring
Machine)

Conventional Method
Excavation is done by manual operation or using
excavating equipment for soft soil
For hard rock done by drilling and blasting
Loose materials are then taken out of the tunnel by the
process called mucking for small section of tunnels
For larger diameter tunnel tippers and loaders are
operated
Tunnel ventilation is needed when excavation is in
sufficient depth
Exhaust pipe are arranged for the ventilation purpose
Two pipes are arranged for the ventilation purpose
One for the foul air to draw out next to push fresh air
inside

Equipment used for conventional

method
Following equipments are used for
conventional method of tunnel
construction
Drilling machine
Excavators for soft ground
Compressors to run drilling heads
Earth transportation equipment for
mucking
Exhaust fans for ventilation
Compressors to supply fresh air

Conventional method
-Drilling and Blasting

Process
1. Set up drill hole
2. Fill with explosive/shoot(i.e. blast)
3. Ventilation, lighting etc.
4. Remove muck/debris
5. Remove ground water
6. Erection of support/temporary +
permanent
7.Steelwork/Formwork
8.Concrete lining

Tunneling by TBM
also known as a "mole"
machine used to excavate tunnels with a circular
cross section through a variety of soil and rock
strata.
can bore through anything from hard rock to sand.
Tunnel diameters can range from a meter (done
with micro-TBMs) to 19.25 m to date
Tunnel boring machines are used as an alternative
to drilling and blasting (D&B) methods in rock and
conventional "hand mining"
significantly reduces the cost of lining the tunnel,

TBM (Tunnel Boring

Machine)

Tunnel Boring Machine

(TBM)
Modern TBMs typically consist of the rotating cutting wheel, called
a cutter head, followed by a main bearing, a thrust system
and trailing support mechanisms
type of machine used depends on the particular geology of the
tunneling site
In hard rock, either shielded or open-type TBMs can be used.
All types of hard rock TBMs excavate rock using disc cutters
mounted in the cutter head.
hard rock TBMs excavate rock using disc cutters mounted in the
cutter head.
disc cutters create compressive stress fractures in the rock,
causing it to chip away from the rock in front of the machine,
called the tunnel face
Open-type TBMs have no shield, leaving the area behind the
cutter head open for rock support

TBM

Equipment for Highway and Pavement

Construction

Process for Pavement Construction

Sub-grade Preparation
Sub-base Preparation
Base-course Preparation
Surface course Preparation

Equipment in Sub-grade /Sub-base/

base Preparation
Grader
to grade the surface to achieve uniform
surface
to achieve the required grade and camber

Roller (Sheep foot roller/tendon roller/steel

roller/vibratory roller)
For compaction
To get the required CBR

Equipment for Bituminous

Pavement work

Bitumen Boiler
Bitumen Distributor
Aggregate Spreader
Asphalt Spreader
Asphalt Distributor
Asphalt Concrete Plant
Asphalt Concrete Paver

Bitumen Boiler
To heat bitumen to required
temperature for mixing
In conventional way of heating boiler
are heated by wood or coal
Modern day boiler use diesel fuel
burners to heat the bitumen to the
required temperature

Bitumen Distributor
Load preheated bitumen from bitumen boiler
is a truck with a tank
Comes with burners fried by petroleum fuel to
control temperature during transportation
Heat the bitumen to required temperature
before spraying
They have spraying arrangement attached
which sprays bitumen in cone shapes through
nozzle

Aggregate Spreader
Used for surface dressing works
Aggregates are sprayed uniformly in
layer covering the bitumen sprayed
Dump truck with spreading
attachment is fixed on the tail which
spread aggregate in uniform manner

Asphalt Distributor
Used while applying prime coat or
tack coat
Consists of an insulating tank with
heating system, a spray bar and
unique control system
Available in either truck mounted or
trailer models and are considered the
most important piece of equipment
on any asphalt surface treatment

Asphalt Concrete Plant

For large volume of asphalt work
asphalt concrete plant is used
Generally produced in hot mixing
plant for better quality and
homogenous mix
Hot mix can be of continuous plant
type

Asphalt Concrete Pavers

Paver (Paver finisher, asphalt
finisher, paving machine)
Machine used to lay asphalt on
roadways
Normally fed by a dump truck which
brings a hot asphalt
Also called mat markers
Self- propelled machines on rubber or
truck mounted

Rollers
For compaction of aggregates
Pneumatic rollers are used to ensure
that aggregates are not broken and
remain intact

Water tanker
For carrying water
Water is used for compaction and
dust control

Equipments for
Hydraulic Construction

Coffer Dam

While corking in shallow water

To facilitate pumping out of water,
excavation, concreting , etc.

For Deep water works

Cranes
Excavating equipment
Concreting equipment

Pumps
Selection of pump depends upon the
size of the water work to be carried
out

4.3 Selection of suitable Equipment:

Since it is not possible to buy all
types and size of the equipment, it is
essential to select the most
appropriate equipment to make
decision for owning equipment
various factors should be considered.
-need of the project
-investment to be made to own
equipment
-operating cost of the equipment

-Depreciation cost: The equipment owned is

expected to recover the loss in value during
its useful life
-cost of repair and maintenance
-Availability and cost of spare parts and
skilled manpower
-The opportunity available to optimize the
use of equipment
-Economic life of the construction equipment