Mobile home: how the Belarusian mining dump truck behaves
This truck never drives on regular roads. It can only be found in quarries and mining operations. And BelAZ-75570 arrives at its place of service in parts, disassembled. The Izvestia correspondent managed to get to know the career giants at the testing ground of the Belarusian Automobile Plant.
One for five
BelAZ-75570— one of the most compact mining dump trucks produced in Zhodino, Belarus, is crawling out from behind a hillock, with a strained roar of a 30-liter V12 diesel engine with a capacity of 1,050 hp and turbines "whistling". This "baby" is the size of a country house, length -10.3 m, width and height — just over 5 m. With its own weight of 74 tons, it can take up to 90 tons of rock into its body. For comparison, a conventional three-axle dump truck can carry 10-15 tons of cargo.
Not only the size of the truck is impressive, but also its operational parameters. For example, the engine cooling system requires almost two barrels of antifreeze (380 liters), one and a half barrels of engine oil (140 liters) are poured into the lubrication system, and another half barrel (100 liters) is required for the gearbox.
Mercilessly crushing the rubble of the landfill with wheels the size of a man of average height, the truck slowly rolls up to the landing site. What initially appear to be basin—sized round headlights are actually giant air filter housings. And the BelAZ headlights themselves are small LED lights in the bumper, which is located approximately at chest level.
It is even easier to get into a BelAZ than into another passenger car: a wide door that opens against the movement and is located on the right, a high doorway, a flat floor, and no threshold... However, first you need to climb nine steps up one of the vertical stairs located on both sides of the four-meter "radiator grille", and also take a couple of steps directly over the hood of the dump truck.
The cabin is small but cozy, with two seats. In front of the driver is a liquid crystal display of the instrument panel, which displays all the necessary information about the operating parameters of the engine, transmission and other units of the dump truck. On the sides of it are a scattering of various buttons, switches and levers. Another pair of displays is located above the driver's head.
Since BelAZ-75570 has to travel exclusively on technological dirt roads, opening windows means that you are guaranteed to breathe dust. To facilitate the driver's work, the dump truck cabin is equipped with air conditioning, which gives a pleasant coolness.
Watch out, I'll hit you!
The saying "A rhino has poor eyesight, but that's not his problem" best describes visibility from the driver's seat of a mining dump truck. Despite the almost meter-high mirrors and video cameras installed around the perimeter of the car, visibility is actually lousy. Sitting at the height of the second floor, you can "look beyond the horizon." But what is happening "under the nose" can only be guessed.
That is why, before starting to move, the test driver first gives a long horn and only then, after waiting a few seconds, starts off. This is a concern for the safety of others: take care, the giant will go soon.
BelAZ-75570 is one of the world's largest "classic" trucks: internal combustion engine, transmission (six—speed automatic), driveshafts and rear drive axle. Dump trucks with a higher load capacity are, in fact, electric cars in which the engine acts as a generator that provides energy for electric motors that rotate the wheels.
In response to pressing the accelerator pedal, the dump truck shudders with its entire 74-ton body and smoothly starts moving. The mighty engine roars, the huge 49-inch wheels kick up clouds of dust. The tourist bus on which a group of journalists arrived at BelAZ looks like a toy from above, and the colleagues standing behind the fence, waiting for their turn, resemble animated tin soldiers. The landfill track, which seemed to be more or less level, filled with large rubble, turns out to be more like a washing board - the car is shaking mercilessly.
— If there were at least 30-40 tons in the back, the car would run like clockwork. And an empty dump truck will shake even on a perfectly flat surface," the test driver explained. When asked if it was difficult to drive such a machine, he deftly turned the steering wheel on the bends of the test track, only grinned: "It's no more difficult than a passenger car, you just need to get used to the dimensions."
The Giant from the Guinness Book
If the test BelAZ-75570 resembled a relatively small garden house, then the BelAZ-75711, standing on the open site of the factory museum, looks more like a three-story luxury cottage with an attic and a terrace. This dump truck is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest and heaviest truck on the planet. It is more than 20 meters long, almost ten meters wide and almost nine meters high. Even a simple neighborhood with him can cause an attack of megalophobia.
This monster, weighing over 390 tons, is capable of carrying 450 tons of rock. And in 2014, he transported an incredible 503.5 tons at a time, which is almost ten railway wagons. According to BelAZ representatives, the truck's design will allow it to take much more rock — up to 700-750 tons. But 63-inch dump truck tires may simply not be able to withstand such a load. There are eight of them on the car, and each one weighs more than 5 tons.
To get into the cabin of the giant, you need to overcome two stairs at once, climbing 25 steps. If the hood of the "younger brother" is suitable as a stage for a rock band, then a symphony orchestra can easily be accommodated here, and there will still be room for a choir. And the body of this dump truck, as practice has shown, can become a platform for some sports competitions — last year it hosted a friendly tournament between the Russian and Belarusian beach volleyball teams.
The BelAZ-75711 is powered by four electric motors, each of which rotates a pair of two wheels. They are powered by two 16-cylinder diesel engines. The volume of each of them is 65 liters, the power is 2330 hp. Thus, the total capacity of the dump truck is 4660 "horses".
There is no conventional steering on a dump truck: each axle is turned by two hydraulic cylinders: one pushes it, the other pulls. In this case, the bridges rotate separately from each other in antiphase. Due to this, despite its gigantic dimensions, the truck has good maneuverability — the turning radius is less than 20 m.
Assembly and disassembly
If ordinary cars and trucks reach customers by car carriers or under their own power, then for BelAZ such a delivery option to the final customer is impossible in principle. Due to their size and weight, they simply cannot travel on ordinary roads. Belarusian giants move from Zhodino to Russian and foreign careers in parts. That is why BelAZ, in addition to the assembly shop, also has a disassembly shop — every dump truck produced gets into it after passing a test cycle at the factory site. Thus, each truck is actually assembled twice: once at the factory, and the second time at its workplace.
According to representatives of the plant, the most widespread models are with a load capacity of 90-130 tons — it is for them that customers have a constant and stable demand. Therefore, so that customers do not have to wait long for the car, the factory has a small stock (20-25 pieces) of such dump trucks. As for more lifting and larger machines, as well as special versions like a "watering machine" that wets roads in quarries, or a tow truck, they are produced only for a specific customer - there is no point in keeping them in stock.
A total of four BelAZ-75711s have been produced since 2013. At the same time, in a quarry (at a coal mine in Kuzbass) only one of them worked. A few years ago, he exhausted his resource and became an exhibit at the Museum of Technology in Verkhnyaya Pyshma in the Urals. The second giant, which we managed to get acquainted with, is in the factory museum, and another 450-ton ship is on display at VDNH in Minsk. The fourth car is disassembled in the factory warehouse.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
