In 1997, the German O&K company introduced the RH400 crawler excavator, which is by far the largest hydraulic excavator in the world. The German O&K mineral company, founded in 1876, was founded by the founder of O Kristin (Benno Orenstein) and Arthur Koppel (Arthur Koppel). In 1908, O&K developed its first steam backhoe excavator. In 1922, the first steam driven crawler excavator was produced in 1922, and the steam engine was replaced by diesel engine in 1926. In 1934, the first bucket wheel excavator was produced by O&K. After 1949, the company turned to open-pit mining equipment and launched the first full hydraulic excavator in 1961. It has always been at the leading level in the field of the development of super large hydraulic excavators. RH400 is the flagship product of O&K, and the only 1000 ton hydraulic excavator in the world. In April 1998, German O&K was incorporated into the TEREX group of the United States. Its main products are still mining machinery.
In 1996, Zink Rudy (Syncrude) oil sand mine in Alberta, Canada, ordered 4 large hydraulic excavators to O&K, Germany. The mine is the largest oil sand mine in the world and produces 500 thousand tons of oil sands per day. It mainly uses excavators for surface mining in permafrost regions. In order to comply with the trend of continuous enlargement of the mine truck, German O&K delivered the first RH400 prototype in July 1997, and Syncrude numbered it 11-35. This is the largest hydraulic excavator in history with its working weight of 830 tons, using two Cummins K-2000E type 16 cylinder water cooled turbocharged diesel engine with a total power of 3401 horsepower and an oil tank capacity of 16000 litres. Two giant tracks, each consisting of 96 caterpillar plates, weighs 1 tons each. The positive shovel has a capacity of 42.5 cubic meters and can dig up 85 tons of oil sands; a 3 shovel can be filled with a 240 ton grade mine, or a 4 shovel is filled with a maximum of 320 tons of mine. The average amount of digging per hour is over 5500 tons, and the highest is over 9000 tons.
The second RH400 number is 11-36, the delivery time is about first half a year, the engine is changed to the stronger Cummins QSK-60C type 60 liter 16 cylinder diesel engine, the output power is 4436 horsepower, and the working weight does not change much. Third units (11-37) and fourth units (11-38) were delivered in 2000. On the basis of the two sets, a large number of improvements have been made on the working device, the car, the walking mechanism, and the body plate, including the redesign of the geometry of the bucket, the lengthening of the big arm and the bucket, the increase of the corner of the bucket, and the output power of the engine to 4463 horsepower. The work weight has increased to 920 tons. Fifth RH400 users are an American coal mine. It is the first motor driven RH400, using two 1800kW asynchronous motors with a total power of 4898 horsepower. Compared with the diesel power type, its apparent difference is that the tail is towed with cables and the top of the cockpit is fitted with guardrails. The sixth RH400, belonging to the North American construction group, was delivered in November 2002 and served in Albian oil sand mine, Canada. It has two 8000 liters of oil tank in the back and 8 main oil pumps for digging and walking, with a total flow of 7392 litres / minutes, and 6 rotary pumps with a total flow of 2928 litres / minutes, and the entire hydraulic system is about 13000 liters. In this way, the weight of all oil on the RH400 is more than 30 tons, and the whole weight increases. Added to 980 tons, bucket capacity increased to 50 cubic meters!
The seventh and eighth RH400 belong to Canadian Natural, which was delivered in 2008 for Horizon oil sands and equipped with 43.5 cubic meters of oil sand bucket. In 2008 8-10, O&K delivered two RH400 to CITIC Pacific mineral company to invest in Sino iron mine in Western Australia. The project is one of the largest overseas resources development projects in China, which is jointly developed by CITIC Tai Fu and Zhongye (China smelter 20%). The total investment of the project is nearly $4 billion. The total open-pit mining method is adopted and 24 million tons of iron concentrate are designed for annual production. The project is planned to be put into production at the end of 2010. In March 2009, O&K delivered a RH400 to the world's largest platinum producer, Anglo platinum, for the largest Mogalakwena mine in the platinum gold mine in South Africa. This is eleventh RH400 and second electric RH400. RH400 was built in the TEREX-O&K plant in Dortmund, Germany, using modular design. The transport was disassembled into 75 pieces, with a maximum weight of 85 tons. 25 trucks are required to participate in the transportation and the assembly work is completed by 15 professional personnel. In order to make this kind of giant excavator worth hundreds of millions of yuan, O&K has introduced a new production line specially on the basis of decades of production experience to continuously improve the production and assembly process. So far, no other models have been able to challenge RH400's status as a king.
Demag H740 OS is the flagship model of Demag excavator in Germany. The first one was launched in 1999. The machine weighs 744 tons and equip 2 CAT3516B diesel engines with a total power of 4463 horsepower, a bucket capacity of 40 cubic meters, and a maximum digging force of 2320kN. Demag, a famous enterprise with a history of more than 180 years, made the first dock crane in 1906. The German name is Deutsche Maschinenfabrik AG, referred to as Demag. In 1910, Demag joined the other three enterprises to form the German machinery manufacturing alliance and developed the largest floating crane in the world. The floating crane is installed at the Harland & Wolf shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, for the construction of the "Olympia" and "Titanic" super cruise ship of the white star shipping company. Since 1925, Demag has started producing steam locomotives and carriages, as well as steam excavators. During the Second World War, nearly half a million tracked armored vehicles were produced. In 1954, Demag developed the first hydraulic excavator and entered the market of construction machinery such as mobile cranes. Demag has been weakening since 1973, and most of its main businesses are being sold. Part of the hydraulic excavator was returned to the Japanese Komatsu group in 1996; the Demag crane business was sold by SIEMENS to the United States in 2002.
