engineering

Long reach excavator

Long reach excavator is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Long reach excavator rather than just read about it. In short: A long reach excavator is a type of excavator where the arm has been extended to reach further than a normal excavator would. It is often used in demolition of buildings, but it can also be used in other applications.

Key takeaways

Long reach excavator belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Long reach excavator to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Long reach excavator from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

A long reach excavator is a type of excavator where the arm has been extended to reach further than a normal excavator would. It is often used in demolition of buildings, but it can also be used in other applications.

History The term long reach excavator was probably first coined by Richard Melhuish, the Chairman of Land & Water. During the 1970s, Land & Water operated the UK's first hire fleet of these new and innovative long reach hydraulic excavators. In fact they still operate the largest fleet of long-reaches in the UK. Land & Water's first long reach excavator was the Hymac 580 BT All Hydraulic 360 “Waterway” machine, designed for work on waterways. These early machines from Hymac came to be widely preferred to the more traditional drag lines designs. Around the same time Priestman (and later Ruston Bucyrus) VC (Variable Counterweight) excavators started to become more popular. However, the work VC machines could achieve was slightly constrained by design limitations compared to fully hydraulic "long reach" machines, especially with the arrival of more reliable machines from Japan built by manufacturers such as Hitachi and Komatsu. These Japanese designed machines hardly ever leaked hydraulic fluid.

Applications Long reach machines are not suitable for the high side twisting forces that can be exerted by demolition attachments and many demolition machines are unstable at large radius. They are often assisted with electronic cut off devices that restrict the operating radius of the machine. Long reach machines are particularly useful in dredging operations.

Related machines The high reach excavator is a development of the excavator with an especially long boom arm, that is primarily used for demolition. Instead of excavating ditches, the high reach excavator is designed to reach the upper stories of buildings that are being demolished and pull down the structure in a controlled fashion. It has largely replaced the wrecking ball as the primary tool for demolition. Ultra high reach demolition excavators (UHD) are demolition excavators with several tens of meters of reach. Reaches of up to 48 metres (157 ft) are in operation as of 2016. As of 2017, there are UHD machines that can reach 67 metres (220 ft).

Trivia The long reach excavator imported to New Zealand for demolitions of tall buildings following the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes has been nicknamed Twinkle Toes. It is the largest excavator in the Southern Hemisphere.

See also Caterpillar 345C L Amphibious excavator

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Long reach excavator

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Long reach excavator claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Long reach excavator before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Long reach excavator ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Long reach excavator

In research: Long reach excavator appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Long reach excavator in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Long reach excavator is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Engineering vehicles, Excavators, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Long reach excavator outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Long reach excavator in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Long reach excavator means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Long reach excavator out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Long reach excavator in simple terms?

Why does Long reach excavator matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Long reach excavator?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Long reach excavator.