Monster trucks, super dozers and gigantic cranes are eye-popping engineering feats that are found on jobsites all over the world.

Here’s a look at some of the biggest, bulkiest and most powerful mining and construction machines ever made.

Liebherr LR 13000 Crawler Crane

The world’s most powerful crawler crane can hoist the equivalent of 30 blue whales, or 3000 tons, in one load.

Even the tracks of this crawler crane dwarf the people around it
Even the tracks of this crawler crane dwarf the people around it. Image via Wikimedia Commons

Fully extended, the LR 13000 is taller than the Carlton Centre in Johannesburg. Its main boom is the length of one and half football fields, and the hook block weighs 11 tonnes – that’s about six times the weight of an average family sedan!

Cat 797F Haul Truck

The Cat 797F is the second biggest haul truck in the world. It has a payload capacity of 400 tonnes. It is so big that it has to be transported in separate components and assembled at the job site.

CAT 797 haul truck at the North Antelope Rochelle opencut coal mine
CAT 797 haul truck at the North Antelope Rochelle opencut coal mine. Image via Wikipedia

It’s longer than two double decker buses, and more than nine metres wide. Each of the truck’s six mega-tyres weighs 5300 kg – that’s two and half times more than the weight of a fully-grown rhinoceros.

Bucyrus-Erie 2570WS Walking Draglines

A Bucyrus-Erie 2570WS walking dragline named Ursa Major is the largest walking dragline currently still in use. It weighs 6,700 tonnes and has a 120 m3 bucket.

Ursa Major at the Black Thunder Coal Mine
Ursa Major at the Black Thunder Coal Mine. Image via Wikipedia

Big Muskie was also a Bucyrus-Erie 4250-W dragline and was largest single-bucket digging machine ever created at the time. The bucket could hold two Greyhound buses side by side. Big Muskie was retired in 1991 and scrapped in 1999.

Big Muskie in February 1999
Big Muskie in February 1999. Image via Wikipedia

Bucyrus-Erie had a line of walking draglines from 1969 onwards, many of which are preserved in museums today. Bucyrus-Erie was acquired by Caterpillar in 2010 in a transaction valued at US$8.6 billion.

Komatsu P&H 4800 XPC Electric Rope Shovel

The Komatsu P&H 4800 XPC electric rope shovel is an ultra-class three-pass-loading-tool. At around 14 metres tall, 15 metres wide and 15 metres long, the P&H 4800 XPC is the largest rope shovel on the market.

Due to a dipper capacity that ranges from 65 to 70 cubic metres, the machine loads 580 tonnes of material in a little over six minutes.

Liebherr 9800 Mining Excavator

With a load capacity of up to 92 tonnes per pass, the Liebherr 9800 is the most productive excavating tool available today. It is also one of the largest.

The machine weighs 810 tonnes – that’s nine times the weight of the Endeavour Space Shuttle – and has a shovel or bucket capacity of 42 or 47 cubic metres, respectively. An engine capacity of 2984 kW is four times that of an F1 racing car.

The 9100 is also an impressively large mining excavator from Liebherr.
The 9100 is also an impressively large mining excavator from Liebherr. Image via Wikimedia Commons

Komatsu P&H L-2350 Loader

Weighing in at 272 tonnes, the L-2350 wheel loader is a beast of a mining machine. Its massive shovel is capable of loading 80 tonnes of material in one pass.

It boasts a 7-metre lift height and 3,5-metre reach and, with a 16-cylinder 65 litre turbocharged engine pumping out 1715 kW, the loader is officially the largest, and one of the most powerful, earth moving machines in operation.

BelAZ 75710 Dump Truck

With a weight equal to that of 100 fully grown elephants, the BelAZ 75710 is by far the largest and heaviest dump truck in the world.

BelAZ 75710 Dump Truck 11 of the World’s Biggest Construction Machines
Image via Wikipedia

It can carry a 450-tonne load and is powered by two 16-cylinder turbocharged engines capable of delivering 24 times more torque than the average F1 racing car. The chassis is as long as two double decker busses, and the truck has eight 4-metre high wheels to keep it off the ground!

Hitachi Zosen Tunnel Boring Machine

Custom engineered to bore a tunnel under the city of Seattle, the Hitachi Zosen tunnel boring machine was the largest machine of its kind. It was 99 metres long, weighed 6100 tons and cost $80 million to build.

The cutterhead had a 17,5-metre diameter and, due its vast size, the machine was shipped to the USA in sections and assembled onsite.

Tunnel boring machine heads of all makes and models need to be massive to accomplish their seemingly impossible task.
Tunnel boring machine heads of all makes and models need to be massive to accomplish their seemingly impossible task.

Komatsu D575A Super Dozer

The Super Dozer is an enormous earth moving machine that’s around 11 metres in length, seven metres in width, and five metres in height.

Komatsu D575A Super Dozer
Image via Wikipedia

It weighs 152 000 kg and has a ‘standard’ blade that’s more than seven metres wide and three metres high. It can move 69 cubic metres of material per pass – that’s the equivalent drum volume of six and half concrete mixing trucks!

Bagger 293 Bucket-Wheel Excavator

The Bagger 293 is so large, it takes five people to operate it. It has 18 massive buckets capable of excavating 240 000 cubic metres of earth – or three million bathtub loads – per day.

Bagger 293 in the Hambach brown coal mine in 2008
Bagger 293 in the Hambach brown coal mine in 2008. Image via Wikipedia

The machine is 96 metres tall, 225 metres long, and at 14 000 tons. It weighs more than eight single-storey houses!

Cat 6120B Hydraulic Shovel

With an operating weight of 1400 tons, and an enormous shovel capable of moving up to 65 cubic metres of material per pass, the Cat 6120B would have been the world’s largest hydraulic shovel.

Sadly, this beast of a machine never entered production. A prototype for the 6120B was made by Caterpillar and one machine was manufactured but never assembled. 

At KH Plant, we don’t deal with the world’s biggest construction machines. We prefer the more humble but ever-reliable Caterpillar motor graders! We specialise in rebuilding Caterpillar 140G, 140H and 140K graders to as-new condition. Call us on +27 83 274 4882 or contact us online to find out more.

Do you need expert assistance?

Call us now on +27 83 274 4882 or email us.

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