Excavator Arm Extension FEA
RK Findlay Engineering approached us to assist them with a design modification to an excavator arm, extending the reach of the machine from 14m to 29m. The 100T Komatsu excavator needed to have the reach extended to be used for shaping the underwater floor profile of reclaimed shipping berths in Port Kembla’s outer harbour. The image below shows another excavator in action performing similar works.
The original boom, and a dipper arm from a CAT330 machine had the centre sections cut out and replaced with newly fabricated longer sections. We used FEA to model the new design and calculate stresses and displacements for a range of loadcases.
RK Findlay had done well with the original design, and some further modifications developed using FEA resulted in a design that met all the required performance targets.
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