POWER SHOVEL – BASIC PARTS & ITS OPERATION
Power shovel is construction machinery whose value is to excavate the earth and load it into the trucks or other hauling machinery waiting nearby. They are capable of excavating all classes of earth, except the solid rock without prior loosening.
The basic parts of a power shovel consists of the mounting (crawler track or rubber tyred wheel), cab, boom, dipper stick, dipper and hoist line.
Fig: Basic Parts of power shovel
The following job conditions should be looked into while selecting the size of a showel.
i. For large lifts to dump earth from basement into tracks will need long boom of a large shovel.
ii. For excavating blasted rocks, large size dipper will easily handle bigger sizes.
iii. For excavating hard and tough bed of soil, the dipper of large shovel which can exert greater downward pressure will be more suitable.
iv. If the undertaking time is such that it needs high hourly output, large shovel must be used.