The Track Loader - A Useful Machine

Probably the first sign of development in any country you will see is a marked increase in their infrastructure. One can see construction of roads and buildings and bridges which are on in full swing. Depending on the size of the project there are massive cranes and earth movers along with dozens of other high performance construction machinery. One of the most commonly used machines on any construction site is the Track Loader. This is primarily an earth moving machine although it can be used to move other construction materials like bricks and foundation stones. Let's look a little more closely at what a Track Loader is and how it works.

A track loader is an engineering vehicle whose chassis is attached to tracks. Unlike most passenger or commercial vehicles which have wheels under their chassis, a track loader has tracks which makes very similar to a military tank. The front end of this has a loader attached to it which performs the digging and loading functions. While this machine has been around for a long time now, there have been three significant evolutions in its design. With every evolution the track loader became a more useful and all-round construction machine with multipurpose capabilities. Of course the downside to this is that these machines can do a little bit of everything but don't have a particular specialty. The Track Loader in essence combines the functions of the standalone machines into one - bulldozer, excavator and wheel loader. This multitasking ability is the primary reason why it is commonly used on construction sites.

The Three Stages of Design:-

1. The design of the modern track loader started from the time when they were manufactured from track tractors with scratch built loading extensions. They were modeled along similar lines to the bulldozers of the time and thus were cable-operated. Like bulldozers, these machines were unable to dig into ground and were primarily used for moving material and loading vehicles.

2. Following this, the next major design change which was incorporated into these machines was the integration of hydraulic systems. The advantage of using hydraulics was that the overall power of the loader was increased. As a result of the increased power these loader could now apply downward pressure to the loading bucket which gave them the ability to dig the ground. At the time most of these track loaders would face a lot of wear on the undercarriage. The front idler wheels especially would get worn out faster than the other components as the design of the loader was based on the bulldozers where heavier components used to be placed on the front end of the track loader.

3. The next innovation in this machine was the hydrostatic drive system. With the introduction of advanced technologies like hydrostatic transmissions and electro-hydraulic controls, this workhorse of a machine suddenly turned into a sophisticated machine. In fact these were the machines of choice on most digs and construction sites till the introduction of advanced excavators. The excavators are quickly find favor with most construction companies due to economic factors as well as their versatility of function.