Failure analysis and redesign of the bucket wheel excavator two-wheel bogie

This paper discusses the cause of the failure in the vital part of the crawler travel gear of the bucket wheel excavator (BWE) - two-wheel bogie (TWB). The results of the finite element analysis (FEA) point out that the main reason of the TWB failure is its insufficient strength under lateral forces acting during curve travel. The weak points in the TWB structure are removed by suitable redesign while keeping in mind all restrictions ensuing from installation conditions and functionality of the existing crawler travel gear. In addition to the numerical analysis (FEA), a parallel experimental analysis of the original as well as the redesigned TWB is conducted on a test board especially designed for this purpose. The experimental results have confirmed the considerably improved response on lateral loads of the redesigned TWB. The exploitation of the redesigned TWB with no failures has confirmed the validity of the reconstruction design. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.