On mining sites, there is a need for rubber-tyred low-loaders to move large
items of equipment from one part of the site to another. This is particularly the
case for crawler-mounted equipment, where excessive undercarriage wear
can occur during extended travel. Such items of equipment can weigh in
excess of 300 tonnes.
The Swing Wheel Low Loaders are rear-loading heavy equipment low loaders, with a unique method of swinging the wheels aside to permit loading on a fixed, inbuilt ramp at the rear of the machine. Loadquip have delivered 300, 385 and 450 tonne payload versions of the swing wheel low loader.
To date, the low-loaders used to transport such equipment have been
supported on a multiplicity of tyres small enough in diameter to fit beneath the
platform. It is quite common to use 32 wheels, arranged in four rows of eight
wheels each. A complex system of load-equalisation apparatus connects the
wheels together to ensure that the load is spread as evenly as possible over
all of the wheels over a range of uneven road conditions, and brakes are
provided for each wheel set.