BAGGER 288

Bagger 288 (Excavator 288), built by the German company Krupp

for the energy and mining FrmRheinbraun, is a bucket-wheel
excavator or mobile strip mining machine. When its
construcTonwas completed in 1978, Bagger 288 superseded
NASA's Crawler-ransporter, used to carry theSpace Shule and
Apollo Saturn V launch vehicle (itself built by excavator
manufacturer MarionPower Shovel Company), as the largest land
vehicle in the world, atBAGGER 288he Bagger 288 was built for
the job of removing overburden before coal mining at the
Hambachstripmine in Germany. It can excavate 240,000 tons of
coal or 240,000 cubic metres ofoverburden daily[1] the
equivalent of a football Feld (soccer) dug to 30 m (98 ) deep.
hecoal produced in one day Flls 2400 coal wagons. he
excavator is up to 220 m (721 ) long andapproximately 96 m
(315 ) high. he Bagger's operaTon requires 16.56 megawas
ofexternally supplied electricity.[2] It can travel 2 to 10 m (6.6 to
32.8 ) per minute (0.1 to0.6 km/h). he chassis of the main
secTon is 46 m (151 ) wide and sits on 3 rows of 4caterpillar
track assemblies, each 3.8 m (12 ) wide. he large surface area
of the tracks meansthe ground pressure of the Bagger 288 is
very small (17.1 N/cm2 or 24.8 psi); this allows theexcavator to
travel over gravel, earth and even grass without leaving a
signiFcant track. It has aminimum turning radius of
approximately 100 metres, and can climb a maximum gradient
of1:18.he excavaTng head itself is 21.6 m in diameter and has
18 buckets each holding 6.6 cubicmetres (8.6 yd) of overburden.