A tracked excavator by Daewoo.

An excavator is an engineering vehicle consisting of a backhoe and cab mounted on a pivot (turntable is a more apt description) atop an undercarriage with tracks or wheels.

Note: the term excavator is sometimes used as a general term for any piece of digging equipment. Tracked excavators are sometimes called trackhoes.

Excavators are used in many roles:

• Digging of trenches, holes, foundations
• Demolition
• General grading/landscaping
• Heavy lift, e.g. lifting and placing of pipes
• River dredging

Excavators come in a wide variety of sizes. The smaller ones are called mini-excavators or compact excavators. One manufacturer's largest model weighs 79200 kg (174,600 lb) and has a maximum bucket size of 4.5 m³ (5.9 yd³). The same manufacturer's smallest mini-excavator weighs 1470 kg (3240 lb), has a maximum bucket size of 0.036 m³ (0.048 yd³) and the width of its tracks can be adjusted to 89 cm (35 inches). Another company makes a mini excavator that will fit through a doorway with tracks that can be adjusted to only 70 cm (28 inches) wide.

Often the bucket can be replaced with other tools like a breaker , a grapple or an auger. Excavators are usually employed together with loaders and bulldozers.

Most smaller excavators have a small backfill blade. It's a horizontal bulldozer like blade attached to the undercarriage and is used for pushing removed material back into a hole.

A Caterpillar excavator at work.

See also

• Bulldozer
• Caterpillar D9
• Caterpillar D11
• Caterpillar Inc.
• Civil Engineering
• Drag line excavator
• Engineering Vehicles

External links

Major manufacturers

• Case website
• Caterpillar Inc: website
• Daewoo
• JCB: website
• Komatsu: website
• Volvo Construction Equipment

General information

• A drawing of a wheeled excavator
• A drawing of a tracked 311 CAT excavator
• Excavators of the Canadian Engineering forces