The world’s biggest dump truck can transport more than 500 metric tons of material
THUNDER BAY – It is an open pit mining company’s dream come true. The World’s Biggest Dump Truck can haul more that 500 metric tons of material. That is the same as seven fully fuelled and loaded Airbus A320-200 planes.
The truck is driven by four 1,200 kW electric motors from Siemens.
How do you get the world’s biggest truck rolling? BelAZ, a Belarusian vehicle manufacturer, came to Siemens with this question in 2011. BelAZ was looking for an electric drive for its new dump truck, which would weigh 360 metric tons unloaded.
The new truck was to transport loads weighing over 500 metric tons — equivalent to more than 350 VW Golf cars or seven fully loaded Airbus A320-200 planes — or about 25 percent more than the previous holder of the “world’s biggest dump truck” record.
Plans also called for the new truck to carry its load at a lower cost per ton of transported material and to have a top speed of 64 km/h when it’s empty.
