A long reach excavator is a type of

excavator Excavators are heavy construction equipment consisting of a boom, dipper (or stick), bucket and cab on a rotating platform known as the "house". The house sits atop an undercarriage with tracks or wheels. They are a natural progression fr ...

where the arm has been extended to reach farther 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 () is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Nissan ''zaibatsu'' and later DKB Group and Fuyo G ...

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 – so 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 Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing d ...

operations.

Related machines

The ''high reach excavator'' is a development of the

with an especially long boom arm, that is primarily used for

demolition Demolition (also known as razing, cartage, and wrecking) is the science and engineering in safely and efficiently tearing down of buildings and other artificial structures. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a bu ...

. 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. UHD Delft

''Ultra high reach demolition excavators'' (UHD) are demolition excavators with several tens of meters of reach. Reaches of up to are in operation as of 2016. there are UHD machines that can reach .

Trivia

The long reach excavator imported to New Zealand for demolitions of tall buildings following the

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

and 2011 earthquakes has been nicknamed

Twinkle Toes Twinkle Toes is the largest excavator in the Southern Hemisphere. It was used in Christchurch to demolish tall buildings following the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes before moving to Wellington following the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake. History and des ...

. It is the largest excavator in the Southern Hemisphere.

References

{{reflist Engineering vehicles Excavators