Excavators are heavy construction equipment consisting of a boom, stick, bucket and cab on a rotating platform (known as the “house”). The house sits atop an undercarriage with tracks or wheels. A cable-operated excavator uses winches and steel ropes to accomplish the movements. They are a natural progression from the steam shovels and often called power shovels. All movement and functions of a hydraulic excavator are accomplished through the use of hydraulic fluid, with hydraulic cylinders and hydraulic motors. Due to the linear actuation of hydraulic cylinders, their mode of operation is fundamentally different from cable-operated excavators.
Excavators are used in many ways:
- Digging of trenches, holes, foundations
- Material handling
- Brush cutting with hydraulic attachments
- Forestry work
- Demolition
- General grading/landscaping
- Heavy lift, e.g. lifting and placing of pipes
- Mining, especially, but not only open-pit mining
- River dredging
- Driving piles, in conjunction with a pile driver
