Olomouc, 22 March 2016 – The metallurgical and engineering company UNEX has concluded a contract with Sokolovská uhelná for overhaul and reconstruction of KU800/12-R bucket wheel excavator. The objective of the contract of total worth CZK 275 million is to modernize and extend the service life of the bucket wheel excavator, which ranks among the biggest mobile machines, which were ever made on Earth.
"The KU800/12-R giant machine was made in the Uničov Engineering Works (currently UNEX) in 1981 and started extracting brown coal in the same year at the newly opened Jiří Open Pit Mine, where is operating reliably to date. The machine was overhauled in in 1996 with reconstruction of the tips, wheels + buckets, cabin and wheel drive gearboxes in 2003; it is now time for a further overhaul related to the modernisation of this walking giant," says Jan Šilhavý, Director of the product team Engineering CZ and SK in UNEX. "We comprehend victory in the tender for repair and modernisation of the bucket wheel excavator as appreciation of the fact that as the original manufacturer of the machine, we do not only have the irreplaceable experience of our employees, but also the original drawings. With a bit of exaggeration, we can say that nothing can surprise us in the reconstruction and modernisation of the giant machine - and it is also for this reason that we are capable of submitting the base offer to Sokolovská uhelná."
UNEX is the leading world manufacturer of machinery for continuous open pit extraction of large volumes of soil, coal and ores and dump management equipment for electric power plants.
Classic bucket wheel excavators on caterpillar or hydraulically actuated walking chassis with telescopic boom for extraction of overburden, coal and minerals were made in Uničov. Other products include long-distance conveyor facilities for continuous transport of large volumes of all sorts of substrates at long distances and also loaders used to handle the stored material.
The KU800/12-R ranks among the bucket wheel excavators with walking chassis and telescopic boom. The weight of the machine is 4362 tonnes, which is equivalent to the weight of 16 Airbus A380-800 planes (the biggest passenger aircraft in the world). The bucket wheel boom of the giant machine has 15 buckets, each with a volume of 1000 litres (= 1 m3) – one rotation of the boom fills two legendary Tatra 815 trucks.
The Jiří Open Pit Mine of Sokolovská uhelná is located north of Sokolov. It is one of the last two coal mines in the Sokolov area that are still operational with a coal production of approximately 8 million tonnes per year, which is the largest volume in the Sokolov coal field. It is assumed that mining at this open pit mine could continue up to about 2035.