GROUND WORK

Excavators and motor graders are equipment that toil hard. They must be made stronger and independent

The large number of infrastructure projects on-going across all parts of the country is seeing a sharp spike in construction equipment. That is an obvious statement. Equipment manufacturers are compelled to reopen plants to manufacture the new orders they are raking in. And while many would wonder, is there room for improvement in excavators and motor graders, which is what we will focus on in this issue.

Vivek Hajela, VP, construction equipment business, L&T, says, “Product improvement is a continuous process and these machines will continue to improve in terms of versatility, ease of operation, enhanced productivity, reduced cost of operation, fuel consumption and most importantly emission reduction. Hydraulic Excavators have started using a lot of ICT tools and mechatronics that make operations easy and user-friendly. Komatsu’s machine tracking and management system KOMTRAX, used on PC210-10M0 and PC300-8M0, is a benchmark for telematics in the CE industry.”

Komtrax enables complete machine monitoring starting with basic information like location, working hours, travel hours, fuel level to machine health, abnormalities, working modes, load condition and energy saving guidance. Komtrax also comes with geo-fencing capabilities. In terms of emission control, use of High-pressure common rail fuel system, EGR, diesel particulate filter and selective catalytic reduction, etc., will become common on all engines.

Komatsu has also developed hybrid excavators that are working in Japan and other western countries. Their implementation and usage will become visible with time in India as well. Full electric versions of small excavators are now being used in developed countries. There is also work around use of hydrogen as fuel for excavators.