Bucket-Wheel Excavators

Continuously excavating, conveying and dumping or stockpiling material, BWEs offer a mining solution with potentially the lowest lifecycle cost, despite the higher initial investment costs. Importantly, a bucket-wheel excavator, together with an integrated conveyor system, is a far more environmentally friendly and safer solution than a truck/shovel operation for open pit mining.

TAKRAF Bucket-Wheel Excavators: versatile and high-capacity machines

TAKRAF Bucket-Wheel Excavators are suitable for a wide range of applications and commodities. Our machines can operate with capacities reaching up to 20,000 m³/h and can work on benches from less than 5 meters up to approximately 50 meters. In most cases, BWEs connect directly to a belt conveyor system or a cross-pit spreader, enabling uninterrupted and continuous material handling.

Get in contact for more information

Bucket-wheel excavator models: compact to large-scale solutions

We offer different bucket-wheel excavator sizes, ranging from compact to large-scale machines, each designed to meet the specific site conditions and project requirements. Whether it’s a compact machine for a tight operating environment or a large BWE for extensive bench heights and widths, we are able to provide a solution.

• Compact bucket-wheel excavators: Ideal for mines with short benches, irregular operating conditions and challenging terrain.
• Large bucket-wheel excavators: Suited to flat mines with unconsolidated rock, large bench sizes and consistent mineral deposits.

Design and key components of a bucket-wheel excavator

Our bucket-wheel excavator designs emphasize efficiency, reliability and ease of maintenance. By customizing each machine to project specifications, we ensure efficient operation and long-term reliability.

The main parts of a bucket-wheel excavator include:

• The bucket-wheel with its buckets
• The bucket-wheel drive located at the head of the boom
• The slewable superstructure with a counterweight boom
• The substructure with crawler undercarriage and a transfer boom or loading unit (crawler-mounted loading bridge) for transfer of material to the bench conveyor

Want to know more? Get in touch!

TAKRAF SRs 8000: The largest bucket-wheel excavator ever built

The TAKRAF SRs 8000, or more commonly known as the Bagger 293, stands out among the largest bucket-wheel excavators in the world. With a service weight of 14,000 t, it holds the title of one of the largest terrestrial vehicles ever built. Other notable dimensions of this massive machine, include an overall length of 225 m, a height of 96 m and a 26 m wide 12-track undercarriage This impressive machine is capable of moving 240,000 m³ of overburden daily. Commissioned in 1995, this mega machine is still working today due to its advanced design for a high dynamically stressed structure. TAKRAF’s history of innovation in bucket-wheel excavator design and manufacturing spans almost a century, reflecting a legacy of engineering expertise.

Bucket-wheel excavator specifications and capabilities

Our bucket-wheel excavators are built to excel in various operational settings, offering superior efficiency, performance and reliability, even in the most arduous conditions. Detailed specifications are available for each model to ensure that our clients receive the machine most-suited to their specific requirements and operational conditions, including bench size, material type, and excavator size.

Based on our extensive expertise and experience in designing and building such mega machines, TAKRAF remains the globally respected leader in BWE engineering design and manufacture.

Get more information on our BWEs

Benefits of employing a bucket-wheel excavator in your operations

In summary, BWEs are very-effective continuous mining machines where you need to excavate or remove a large amount of material in an efficient and cost-effective manner. 

Benefits of employing a TAKRAF BWE include: 

• High efficiency: BWEs offer continuous operation with capacities reaching up to 20,000 m³/h, significantly enhancing productivity.
• Versatility: Available in both compact and large-scale models, BWEs are tailored to specific site conditions, including varying bench heights and material types. 
• Adaptability: BWEs are designed to operate in diverse geological and climatic conditions, ensuring reliability and performance across various mining environments.
• Automation: Currently TAKRAF BWEs already make use of partial automation technology, with complete remote operation being trialed on smaller machines.
• Sustainability: By integrating BWEs with conveyor systems, the need for truck haulage is reduced, leading to reduced emissions, lower environmental impact, lower operational costs and significantly increased safety. 

Despite the size of our BWEs, their safety record over nearly 90 years attests not only to the commitment of adhering to a high level of operational safety regulations but also to superior design engineering. Their impressive overburden removal capability and the sheer scale of these machines makes them true feats of engineering.