Broadly speaking, it is a giant excavator machine with a huge and impressive rotary shovel (gearwheel). Built in 1978 at a cost of over 100 million dollars, it is today one of the most impressive works created by man.

Redefining the concept of 'giant'

The Bagger 288 is a mobile open pit mining machine, its dimensions are 220 meters long, 96 meters high and 46 meters wide, with a weight of 13,500 tonsTo move all this weight without damaging the surface or sinking, 12 heavy tracks were designed, each 3.8 metres wide, allowing it to move at a speed of between 0.1 and 0.6 km/h.

To operate this monster only five people are needed, but it can work well with just three. One of the main parts is its wheel, which has a diameter of 21.6 meters and has 18 buckets with a capacity of 6.6 m³ each, which allows it to extract some 240,000 tons of material in one day's work, which is equivalent to a football field excavated up to 30 meters deep.

All the material extracted in one day fills 2,400 wagons, which is why it is also considered the machine that obtains the most material in a day of operation. The Bagger 288 is electric, but For its operation it needs 1.71 kilometers of cables with the diameter of a man's arm, since the machine has no internal power supply. The energy required for its operation is equivalent to the daily consumption of a small town of 20,000 people.

It has four material conveyor belts, each 3.2 metres wide, which move at a speed of 17 km/h and are responsible for transporting earth and rocks to the containers. Being a machine designed for open-air mining, it needs an area where it can operate and move with a certain amount of freedom, since Its turning radius is 100 meters.

When it was built by the Krupp company, it was estimated that the Begger 288 would have a useful life of 40 years, but today, seeing its capacity and how it continues to function perfectly, it is believed that it could work up to 50 years without any problem.

Via | Popular Science

https://www.xataka.com/vehiculos/bagger-288-asi-es-la-colosal-maquina-considerada-el-vehiculo-terrestre-mas-grande-del-planeta