Home Blogs Mining What are the Wheel Front End Loaders Characteristics and Applications?

What are the Wheel Front End Loaders Characteristics and Applications?

ShirleyShirley Mar 15, 2021Mar 15, 2021 19251925
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Front end loader is the commonly used loading machines in mines. Because of the difference of its forward body, it can be divided into wheel front end loader and crawler front end loader. Although the traction and shoveling force of the crawler front end loader are relatively large, it has low speed and inflexibility, and often requires a trailer when transferring, resulting in high construction costs. Therefore, the wheel front end loader is more commonly used in the world. Before we have talked about how does the front end loader work in open-pit mines. The following will specifically introduce the characteristics and application of wheel front end loader.

01 What are the wheel loaders advantages and disadvantages?

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As a common loading equipment in mines, wheel loader has many advantages compared with excavators, but also has some disadvantages.

(1) What are the advantages of wheel loader?

The advantages of wheel loader are high speed and high loading efficiency, low cost, good flexibility, multifunction, fast update and easy operation.

#1 High speed and high loading efficiency. The wheel loader has fast forward speed, short working cycle time and high loading efficiency. According to the mine data, the speed of a wheel loader with a bucket capacity of 5-8m3 can reach more than 35km/h, which is 30-90 times faster than an electric scraper. Each working cycle of wheel loader only takes 40 -45s, and the average production capacity per shift can reach 3500-4000t. Average labor productivity can be increased by 50%-100%.

#2 Low cost. The weight of the wheel loader is light, which is equivalent to 1/8-1/6 of the weight of the same bucket capacity excavator, and saves a lot of steel. The manufacturing cost of the wheel loader is only 1/4-1/3 of that of the excavator, and the price is relatively cheap, which can reduce the equipment investment in the mine and reduce the proportion of fixed assets.

#3 Good flexibility. Wheel Loader has strong climbing ability and good flexibility. Wheel loaders can perform loading operations on slopes that are not allowed by excavators, especially on new mine sites that lack power, which can speed up mine construction and shorten the construction period.

#4 Multifunction. The scheduling of wheel front end loader is convenient, and has multiple functions. It can effectively carry out multiple operations such as shoveling, loading, transporting, pushing, arranging and stacking in the mining and loading operations. Wheel loaders can replace electric scrapers and cars in small and medium mines. It can also carry out loading operations freely on newly opened working faces, narrow working faces and other working faces with poor conditions. After blasting, the wheel loader can clean the working surface by itself, and it can be loaded during cleaning without other auxiliary equipment, so the comprehensive cost of mine production can be reduced. According to statistics, in some European and American countries, the loading cost of using wheel loaders is 20%-30% lower than that of excavators.

#5  Fast update. The depreciation period of the wheel front end loader is only 1/4-1/8 of that of the excavator. It can be replaced with new and more advanced equipment after 5-6 years of operation, which is conducive to mine management and maintenance work, and is conducive to the upgrading of equipment.

#6 Easy operation. Wheel loader is easier to handle than the excavator, thus shortening the training time of the driver. At the same time, a wheel loader only needs one driver to operate, which can save manpower, material resources and financial resources.

(2) What are the disadvantages of wheel loader?

The disadvantages of wheel loader are weak excavating ability, small mechanism size and short service life.

#1 Weak excavating ability. Compared with the excavating capacity of the excavator, the working efficiency of the wheel loader will be significantly reduced when the blasting quality is not good and there are more large blocks. For the more viscous materials, the shoveling operation and other auxiliary work can only be carried out after loosening.

#2 Small mechanism size. Compared with the excavator, the working mechanism size of the wheel front end loader is smaller. Due to the limitation of safety conditions, it is not suitable to work in the working face with higher explosion pile, and the bench height shall not exceed 12m in general.

#3 Short service life. The tire of the front loader wears out faster and has shorter service life. In recent years, although protective chain rings or cushion crawler plates have been installed to reduce tire wear, the life of the tire can only be about 1500h. The cost of tires still accounts for a large proportion of production costs (about 40-50%, even as high as 60%).

02 What are wheel loaders used for?

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According to mine practice, the wheel loader is mainly suitable for the following 4 operations.

  • It is used for loading, pushing and dumping, lifting and towing in the construction of open-pit mine development and stripping, railway foundation construction and road repairing.

  • In small and medium-sized open-pit mines, it is used to replace excavators and automobiles as the main mining, loading, and transportation equipment for the mine. It can be combined with cars, and can also load and transport ore to the crushing station.

  • In some large open-pit mines, wheel loaders are used to cooperate with excavators to carry out mining and loading work and other auxiliary operations under complex conditions (such as sorting mining, end of working face, blasting pile dispersion, trench excavation, etc.).

  • The loader can be used for mining, loading, and transporting combined operations on the face with a steep slope to complete difficult mining work.

03To Wrap Up

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The above introduces the advantages, disadvantages and application of wheel loaders. At present, excavators and wheel loaders account for about 50% of the loading equipment used in open-pit mines around the world. Although there are still a series of problems with the wheel loaders, with the rapid development of manufacturing technology, these shortcomings will continue to be optimized.

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