A steam shovel is a large steam-powered excavating machine designed for lifting and moving material such as rock and soil. It is the earliest type of power shovel or excavator. Steam shovels played a major role in public works in the 19th and early 20th century, being key to the construction of railroads and the Panama Canal. The development of simpler, cheaper diesel-powered shovels caused steam shovels to fall out of favor in the 1930s.
Grimshaw of Boulton & Watt devised the first steam-powered excavator in 1796. In 1833 William Brunton patented another steam-powered excavator which he provided further details on in 1836. The steam shovel was invented by William Otis, who received a patent for his design in 1839. The first machines were known as 'partial-swing', since the boom could not rotate through 360 degrees. They were built on a railway chassis, on which the boiler and movement engines were mounted. The shovel arm and driving engines were mounted at one end of the chassis, which accounts for the limited swing. Bogies with flanged wheels were fitted, and power was taken to the wheels by a chain drive to the axles. Temporary rail tracks were laid by workers where the shovel was expected to work, and repositioned as required.
Steam shovels became more popular in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Originally configured with chain hoists, the advent of steel cable in the 1870s allowed for easier rigging to the winches.
Later machines were supplied with caterpillar tracks, obviating the need for rails.
The full-swing, 360° revolving shovel was developed in England in 1884, and became the preferred format for these machines.
Expanding railway networks (in the US and the UK) fostered a demand for steam shovels. The extensive mileage of railways, and corresponding volume of material to be moved, forced the technological leap. As a result, steam shovels became commonplace.
American manufacturers included the Marion Steam Shovel Company founded in 1884, the Bucyrus Company and the Erie Shovel Company, now owned by Caterpillar.
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A dragline excavator is a piece of heavy equipment used in civil engineering and surface mining. Draglines fall into two broad categories: those that are based on standard, lifting cranes, and the heavy units which have to be built on-site. Most crawler cranes, with an added winch drum on the front, can act as a dragline. These units (like other cranes) are designed to be dismantled and transported over the road on flatbed trailers. Draglines used in civil engineering are almost always of this smaller, crane type.
Heavy Equipment, Heavy Machinery, Earthmovers, Construction Vehicles, or Construction Equipment, refers to heavy-duty vehicles specially designed to execute construction tasks, most frequently involving earthwork operations or other large construction tasks. Heavy equipment usually comprises five equipment systems: the implement, traction, structure, power train, and control/information. Heavy equipment has been used since at least the 1st century BC when the ancient Roman engineer Vitruvius described a crane in De architectura when it was powered via human or animal labor.
A traction engine is a steam-powered tractor used to move heavy loads on roads, plough ground or to provide power at a chosen location. The name derives from the Latin tractus, meaning 'drawn', since the prime function of any traction engine is to draw a load behind it. They are sometimes called road locomotives to distinguish them from railway locomotives – that is, steam engines that run on rails. Traction engines tend to be large, robust and powerful, but also heavy, slow, and difficult to manoeuvre.
Steam is a key energy vector for industrial sites, most commonly used for process heating and cooling, cogeneration of heat and mechanical power as a motive fluid or for stripping. Steam networks are used to carry steam from producers to consumers and betw ...
2016
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Steam is a key energy vector for industrial sites, used for process heating, direct injection and stripping, tracing and cogeneration of mechanical power. Steam networks transport steam from producers to consumers and across different pressure levels. The ...
The Italian Association of Chemical Engineering2015
The first step towards managing and optimising the steam network of an industrial cluster or plant is to accurately measure the production and consumption of the different levels of steam. Measurement errors as well as unmeasured contributors lead to inacc ...