Can you run a steel track dozer over buring coals?
Yes, be careful of leaks, and particularly a coal getting up into the belly pan will probably cost you a dozer. If you are running in and out of the glowing coals, I wouldn't worry about any type of tracks. If you will be constantly in glowing material, I don't know about sealed tracks. I wouldn't park any tracks in piles of glowing material. I have seen track loaders working in molten slag in steel mills, (just in and out), and I think they ran dry tracks, but you shouldn't be in anything near that hot.
I would be worried about sparks getting into belly pan and starting fire there as there seems to always be oil and what ever in there. Metallurgical wise it won't be hot enough to do damage that way but I would also be worried about heat and the seals in SALT undercarriage. As for track loaders in slag in steel mills, those machines have the shortest life of any application.
As a former fireman I have spent a lot of time with my boots on this type of terrain. Ordinarily hot coals are only in small pockets. Most of the ground is black and cold within a few hours of the fire passing and it only gets cooler after that. Holes where a dry stump has burned can be big and hot for a very long time but they are scattered around. The soft tan soles of boots that some contractors like to wear can tend to melt and catch fire, though, so I would invest in some boots with the hard black sole, in case you have to get out and walk around where it is hot.
Yair . . . Maroonrain . I know nothing of how SALT will handle heat but after a shift of raking out and stacking fires with the old style tracks it was pretty common for the plates get hot enough sizzle when you ****. As others here have mentioned belly-guard fires are always a danger. We always carried drums of water on the floorplates . . . later tractors had water tanks built into the canopies. I can see fires would be a much greater problem these days with operators divorced from reality within the confines of an air-conditioned cab. Cheers.
Welcome to the Forums Maroonrain! Give us some background as to why you need to run over hot coals.
Thank you for the interest. I am a engineer for a soil remediation company. We use electric heaters to heat soils up to 700 Deg F. It depends on the contaminate we are cooking out of the ground. On a few occassions the client wants us to start demob the site as soon. The problem is that it take approx 120 plus days to reach treatment temperature and then it take even longer to let the soils cool. I know the quick obvious answer is to add water. It just sometimes the client is sensitive to steam plums. So lets say you have an area the size of a football field and the surface temperature is between 250 Deg F and 212 Deg F. Is there existing equipment that can roll over the top and push hot soils around. Could you mist water over the tracks to cool them? It seems maybe a combination of misting and a heat shield underneath a dozer may work. I am hoping someone may point to an particular industry that is subjected to similiar working conditions.....for example asphalt pavers. If I can find a solution you guys will help me to be a rockstar!
just a thought how about a trash compactor steel wheels or maybe a wheel loader with the same steel wheels. a wheel loader would have more ground clearance and bearings and componets would be further from heat. how much dirt are you trying to move a lot or just leveling up surface
The area of a football field and turning soils down to a foot below grade. What is a trash compactor with steel wheels.
First thing that comes to mind but this machine is designed to work in an environment with much higher temps. It might be over kill but gives you some ideas. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5gVrX_gYnA
Several manufacturers make dozers for fighting forest fires, including CAT and John Deere. They have extra guarding for this type of work.
250f isn't going to be a problem for any thing on steel tracks, and is way below ignition temperature for almost any solid material. You could run rubber tires in 250f for a while, though if you did more than just run through occasionally, your tire life would be terrible. Paper has to be heated above 400f to catch fire. As long as you don't have a fuel leak, you're fine. When you were talking about hot coals, I was seeing temps north of 750f.
As far as I know, fire Cats have off the shelf type SALT tracks. Normally, the ground they work is less than the 250 degrees cited here. Usually Cats are cutting line in country that has not yet burned. Sometimes they work right along the fire edge if they have air conditioning. However, I could see conditions where the tracks are getting close to 250 such as working over a burned area after the fire has been stopped. I don't foresee many other problems at 250 degrees, besides the seals in the SALT. Does that steel mill 973D have SALT with silicone seals perhaps? Or just dry tracks?
https://www.google.com/search?q=lan...wiwLel4G4Bw&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1920&bih=1098
Yair . . . I think the original poster may be seeing a problem where one does not exist. Out of interest though has anyone asked Cat or Berco what temps their tracks can run at? Is conventional dry track still available? Cheers.
if it's just the size of a football field and your just trying turn the ground over 1'deep an excavator would probley work fine almost all of them have dry track's. but I don't know about the radiant heat coming up and making the engine cooling system overheat with an excavator it would be setting in the heat for longer periods where a dozer or loader could run in and out of the heat zone. are you trying to turn the ground over to make it cool faster
Wheel loaders with compactor tires might be your cheapest solution, although they will ride rough. If cooling is the goal, rome disk?
A dozer with a ripper would be most efficient for aerating the soil. I imagine it's pretty hard after having been baked. If it's not too dense, a root rake would be an option.
In my experience, dirt turns to dry, crumbly powder when it has been baked, and is very easy to dig. The dust is terrible, though.
If you are looking to just turn the soil you could use a crawler loader and outfit it with a bottom plow in the back. Using the loader will get u a wide range of applications to use it for. Add a quick coupler to it and you have may more things you can do with it. As for the temp. issue I do not see there being one. With a good operator it would not take long to turn a field that size. So the machine would not get extremely hot.