Құрылыс техникасы және ауыр машиналар

Vehicles designed for executing construction tasks

Heavy equipment, heavy machinery, earthmovers, construction vehicles, or construction equipment, refers to heavy duty vehicles specially designed to execute construction tasks, most frequently involving earthwork operations or other large construction tasks. Heavy equipment usually comprises five equipment systems: the implement, traction, structure, power train, and control/information. Heavy equipment has been used since at least the 1st century BC when the ancient Roman engineer Vitruvius described a crane in De architectura when it was powered via human or animal labor. Heavy equipment functions through the mechanical advantage of a simple machine, the ratio between input force applied and force exerted is multiplied, making tasks which could take hundreds of people and weeks of labor without heavy equipment far less intensive in nature. Some equipment uses hydraulic drives as a primary source of motion. The word plant, in this context, has come to mean any type of industrial equipment, including mobile equipment (e. g. in the same sense as powerplant). However, plant originally meant "structure" or "establishment" – usually in the sense of factory or warehouse premises; as such, it was used in contradistinction to movable machinery, e. g. often in the phrase "plant and equipment".

The use of heavy equipment has a long history; the ancient Roman engineer Vitruvius (1st century BCE) gave descriptions of heavy equipment and cranes in ancient Rome in his treatise De architectura. The pile driver was invented around 1500. The first tunnelling shield was patented by Marc Isambard Brunel in 1818.

Until the 19th century and into the early 20th century heavy machines were drawn under human or animal power. With the advent of portable steam powered engines the drawn machine precursors were reconfigured with the new engines, such as the combine harvester. The design of a core tractor evolved around the new steam power source into a new machine core traction engine, that can be configured as the steam tractor and the steamroller. During the 20th century, internal combustion engines became the major power source of heavy equipment. Kerosene and ethanol engines were used, but today diesel engines are dominant. Mechanical transmission was in many cases replaced by hydraulic machinery. The early 20th century also saw new electric powered machines such as the forklift. Caterpillar Inc. is a present day brand from these days, starting out as the Holt Manufacturing Company. The first mass produced heavy machine was the Fordson tractor in 1917. The first commercial continuous track vehicle was the 1901 Lombard Steam Log Hauler. The use of tracks became popular for tanks during World War I, and later for civilian machinery like the bulldozer. The largest engineering vehicles and mobile land machines are bucket wheel excavators, built since the 1920s. "Until almost the twentieth century, one simple tool constituted the primary earthmoving machine: the hand shovel – moved with animal and human powered, sleds, barges, and wagons. This tool was the principal method by which material was either sidecast or elevated to load a conveyance, usually a wheelbarrow, or a cart or wagon drawn by a draft animal. In antiquity, an equivalent of the hand shovel or hoe and head basket—and masses of men—were used to move earth to build civil works. Builders have long used the inclined plane, levers, and pulleys to place solid building materials, but these labor saving devices did not lend themselves to earthmoving, which required digging, raising, moving, and placing loose materials. The two elements required for mechanized earthmoving, then as now, were an independent power source and off road mobility, neither of which could be provided by the technology of that time." Container cranes were used from the 1950s and onwards, and made containerization possible. Nowadays such is the importance of this machinery, some transport companies have developed specific equipment to transport heavy construction equipment to and from sites. Most of the major equipment manufacturers such as Caterpillar, Volvo, Liebherr, and Bobcat have released or have been developing fully or partially electric powered heavy equipment. Commercially available models and R&D models were announced in 2019 and 2020. Robotics and autonomy has been a growing concern for heavy equipment manufacturers with manufacturers beginning research and technology acquisition. A number of companies are currently developing (Caterpillar and Bobcat) or have launched (Built Robotics) commercial solutions to the market.