Excavator Bucket Material Selection

The selection of materials for excavator buckets is a crucial decision-making process that directly affects the buckets service life, operational efficiency, and overall economics. The core of material selection lies in achieving the best balance between wear resistance and impact toughness based on the specific working conditions and the characteristics of the excavated material.

For lighter duty environments such as excavating general clay, loose soil, or sand, domestic high-strength structural steel 16Mn is a common choice for standard buckets, providing good comprehensive mechanical properties and cost-effectiveness. When facing heavy-duty operations such as hard soil mixed with softer gravel or crushed stone and gravel, the vulnerable parts of reinforced buckets, such as the tooth base plate and side cutting edges, will be made of domestic high-strength wear-resistant steel NM360, which offers superior wear resistance. In the most demanding operating environments, such as excavating hard soil mixed with harder gravel, sub-hard rock, weathered rock, or blasted ore, the key components of rock buckets need to be made of imported ultra-high-strength wear-resistant steel (such as HARDOX) to ensure they can withstand extremely high abrasion and impact. In addition, overlaying wear-resistant hard alloys or installing replaceable wear-resistant blocks on wear-prone areas is also an effective way to improve the local wear resistance of the bucket.

The appropriate size (capacity) of excavator buckets used in the mining industry mainly depends on the matched excavator model scale and the density of the material being handled. Mining operations are heavy-duty, and large to ultra-large hydraulic excavators are commonly used (with tonnage reaching hundreds or even nearly a thousand tons), and their bucket capacity is correspondingly huge, ranging from several cubic meters to tens of cubic meters. For example, some ultra-large mining hydraulic excavators have a bucket capacity of up to 52 cubic meters. The selection should not blindly pursue large capacity, but also consider the material density to avoid overloading, and strive for efficient loading cycles that match the capacity of mining truck compartments to achieve optimal production efficiency.