PC8000 THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST

There aren’t many places on earth where you can find Komatsu Mining’s top of the range PC8000.

The Canadian Oil Sands, Australia’s outback and South America’s precious metal mines are amongst the obvious locations for this 830-tonne giant.

When AWESOME EARTHMOVERS found out there was one due to be delivered into Switzerland, we hastily organised a trip to see it.

Whilst most of the 100 plus active models in the World are handling thousands of tonnes of material on an hourly basis, the Swiss machine has been purchased by the Appenzeller Park near St Gallen, just an hour away from Zurich, as a visitor attraction. The Appenzeller Park is an indoor activity and climbing area, not usually a place associated with some of the world’s largest mining equipment

Currently the largest model in Komatsu’s six model lineup of hydraulic mining excavators, the PC8000 can trace its history back to the mid 1980’s when Demag launched their 500 tonne plus H485 mining shovel. This was at the time the largest hydraulic mining excavator ever to be built and paved the way for the huge machines dominating mine sites around the world today.

The H485 was such a success in the Canadian Oil Sands with contractor KMC, that Demag and KMC worked closely together to develop the next step in the H485’s life, the H685SP. With Komatsu now taking a stake in the German manufacturer, the H740OS was born. A special version designed specifically for Oil Sands operations, the H740OS was sadly a one-off for KMC but paved the way for what was to become the PC8000. With Komatsu’s eventual takeover of Demag in the late 90’s, Komatsu Germany Mining progressed forwards with the development of the H range of mining machines bringing them in line with their smaller models and branding them as PC machines which stands for power crawler. Such was the success of the initial H685SP and H740OS with

KMC, the company were one of the first in the world to take delivery of the PC8000-6 model. Since its inception, the PC8000 has grown to become one of the biggest hydraulic mining excavators on the planet serving mining customers all over the world.

SPECIFICATIONS

This machine is huge! Each 10.65m long track frame carries 49, 1.9m wide flat pad track shoes to distribute the weight of the machine. With an overall width of almost 8.5m, the machine exerts a pressure on the ground of 22.6N/cm2 or 32.8psi. The height of each track section is almost 3m or 10 feet off the ground. The huge upper structure of the machine was shipped from the factory in modular parts before being assembled on site. Each of the machine’s two engine modules contains a single, 16-cylinder Cummins SDA16V160E-3 diesel engine. The combination of both engines delivers a massive 4050hp allowing the machine to dig the hardest of material with ease. If electric power is more your thing, the PC8000 can be fitted with two asynchronous motors developing 3940hp. Everything is big on this machine. Cooling packs, hydraulic pumps, hoses, there’s very little here that can be moved by hand and this is the case when it comes to filling the machine up with oils and fluids. The eight hydraulic pumps each push out 1,035 litres per minute with the entire system requiring 11,500 litres and the tank itself holding a staggering 7,750 litres. There is 860 litre of engine coolant, 580 litres of engine oil and 900 litres of grease in the lubrication system. The biggest volume is found in the fuel tank. If the machine, like most do, is working around the clock the tank will need replenishing every 24 hours! To aid the servicing and refuelling a drop down arm swings from the upper structure towards the ground where the service crew can attach fast fill and fast drain hoses to quickly replace lost fluids.

The operator’s cab on the PC8000 is mounted on the right hand side of the upper structure to aid double spotting of trucks out on site and increase productivity. The cab itself is like a small home! Well-appointed and with all of the day to day driver luxuries smaller excavator operator’s enjoy, the cab boasts not only the operator’s seat but a full sized trainer’s seat and ample storage space as well.

At the business end of this giant, customers can specify either a face shovel or backhoe option. The Appenzeller machine has been supplied with a backhoe set up and carries a 55m3 bucket which can potentially carry over 80 tonnes of material. The PC8000 is ideally matched to 240-400 tonne capacity trucks filling them in 3 to 5 passes. The mining boom and stick enables the machine to achieve a maximum dig depth of 9m and a ground level reach of over 20m.

Simply getting the PC8000 to the St Gallen site involved a huge amount of planning and consultation with police and local authorities as there are up to 20 loads required to deliver the machine, many of them falling under Switzerland’s exceptional load regime and requiring delivery at night. The cooperation between both the client, Komatsu Mining in Germany and Swiss dealer Kuhn along with the transport company was exceptionally important to ensure the staged delivery of parts to allow the machine to be steadily and safely built up over a number of weeks on the specially constructed reinforced concrete pad.

Whilst the PC8000 meets Switzerland’s emissions regulations and could quite easily be operated, due to the machine’s location near residential and business properties, it was deemed safer and more considerate to the neighborhood and environment to have it drained of all fuel and oils whilst it is an exhibition piece

What made the Appenzeller Park purchase such a machine is still a mystery. Maybe it’s seen the Komatsu machine as a potential investment for the future should anyone require an 800 tonne class hydraulic mining excavator at (relatively) short notice. One thing we do know is that unless you are lucky enough to get to one of the large mining machine factories located in France and Germany, this will be one of the only places in Europe where you can get up close to such an Awesome Earthmover.