Failure Analysis and Optimization of Excavator Arm - A Review

For light duty construction work, generally mini hydraulic backhoe excavators are used and mostly there are soil surfaces for excavation. So, design of backhoe excavator is critical task in context of digging force developed through actuators during the digging operation. The important criteria for the design to be safe is that, the digging forces developed by actuators must be greater than that of the resistive forces offered by the surface to be excavated. The two important factors considered during designing an excavator arm are productivity and fuel consumption. As the present mechanism used in excavator arm is subjected to crushing and bending stresses during lifting and digging operation respectively, because of which failure occurs frequently at the bucket end of the arm. So, the new mechanism of excavator arm is designed and the Pro-e software is used for making the 3D model of the excavator arm linkage. By using ANSYS workbench software static analysis of each of the excavator arm component is done at existing digging force and also at newly calculated digging force. Also the bucket volume is increased to compensate for the loss in production due to the reduction in digging force. Increased in bucket volume will also increase the amount material to be fed in the bucket. So, dynamic analysis is also done by applying the force acting when the bucket is fully filled with material. The comparison of proposed model with the existing model is done.