im having some trouble. iv got a 15minute turnaround time from channel to stockpile. my 631Ds are about 285hr. my 40t cats are 175hr plus the excavator to load them 160? my engineers saying we can save money using haul trucks with excavator. whats you opinions?
OOOOH, this will be good! Opinions will vary. You say channel, what kind of ground conditions? What do you use to load the 631's? What is the stockpile area like? In good conditions, a 631 will haul a little more than a 740. In tough loading, the 740 will be full every time, the 631, maybe full, maybe not. If it is muddy, the 740's will keep performing where the 631's will be stuck. Haul road speed will be comparable, and the scraper will dump faster, if it is good material. If it is mud and muck, the truck wins hands down. The 631 will burn more fuel, and that is represented in the hourly rate. Your rate for the excavator loading thre trucks suggests to me it is undersized, and that will put the advantage to the 631's, unless it is muddy. $160 won't pay for a very big hoe. I like to use a 375 or so, and load in 3 passes. With a 15 minute haul, the flotation tires on the 740's will give trouble unless they are in top condition. That long of a haul creates a lot of heat, and the 29.5 tires don't seem to hold up, in my experience, on long hauls, especially in the heat. If the material is good, the scrapers can keep dumping with no more than the haul road unit bhrushing up the pile now and then. If it is muddy, rocky, or other poor conditions, then they need as much support as trucks. Trucks, on the other hand, can dump piles for a long time, then have a dozer knock the top off of the pile in a short time, and they can dump alone again. For a better answer, some more info would help.
the material is pretty much been cut and sitting loose in big windrows. the stockpiles about 20acres in size. i want to brush the stockpile up with a grader and off hire the 825. we have formed haul roads, rain shuts us down straight away. the scrapers will load themselves as the ground is monitored for atifacts after a scraper strips. id say we have 5-6weeks left with 4x631s