A civil engineer does a lot of different things. Because of the pandemic, they have to figure out how to work from far away, adapt to new construction trends, and manage projects like building bridges, highways, and waterways.

To help them do this, they use special tools, equipment, and instruments for building.

Civil engineering uses surveying tools, earth-moving tools, heavy machinery, and other tools to make their jobs easier and more effective.

Without the heavy tools they use, the buildings and designs they make wouldn’t be safe.

Civil engineers also use geographic information systems and different drawing tools to map out and plot specific locations.

Software is also used in construction to help plan the buildings that need to be built there.

This is on top of the different kinds of surveying equipment that civil engineers use to measure land and water areas.

For example, they may use a sophisticated GPS system made for this kind of work.

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In the article that follows, we’ll take a closer look at the big machines that builders use.

11 Types of Heavy Equipment Used in Construction

  • Excavator
  • Dragline Excavator
  • Backhoe
  • Bulldozer
  • Grader
  • Wheel Tractor Scraper
  • Trencher
  • Loader
  • Tower Crane
  • Paver

Excavator

Excavators are important pieces of construction equipment that are used a lot in civil construction.

Their main job is to dig, but they are also used for many other things, like moving heavy things, tearing down buildings, cleaning out rivers, cutting down trees, etc.

Excavators have a long arm at the end of which is a digging bucket.

From the cab of the excavator, the operator moves the heavy machinery around the construction site.

The cabin can be turned 360 degrees, which lets the operator work in more than one area from the same spot.

Excavators come as both vehicles with wheels and vehicles with tracks.

Dragline Excavator

Another important piece of heavy construction equipment is the dragline excavator.

It is mostly used for digging deeper holes.

A dragline excavator has a long arm called a “boom” and a digging bucket that is held up by a cable from the top of the boom.

Dragline excavators can be used to build ports, dig underwater, or clean sediment out of bodies of water.

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Backhoe

A backhoe is another common piece of construction equipment that moves dirt and can be used for more than one thing.

The name of the machine suggests that the digging part is on the back and the bucket for loading is on the front.

One of the most useful pieces of construction equipment is the backhoe loader. They can be used in many different ways in the building industry. You can use them to:

  • earthmoving equipment
  • small demolitions at the construction site
  • digging holes
  • excavation
  • landscaping
  • breaking up of concrete or asphalt
  • dig trenches
  • loading and unloading materials

You can also switch out the bucket for other tools, like an auger, grappler, or hammer.

The backhoe is an important piece of heavy construction equipment. It is an important piece of construction equipment because it can be used for so many different things.

Bulldozer

Bulldozers are a piece of construction equipment that is often used.

Due to its wide tracks, the bulldozer can move through rough terrain on any construction site. Even though it is heavy equipment, this track helps to spread the bulldozer’s weight over a large area, so it can work on muddy or sandy sites.

Most of the time, the bulldozer is used to move dirt. On construction sites, the blade on the front of the bulldozer is used to push or remove soil, sand, and other debris.

Hydraulic pistons are used to lower and raise this plate.

A ripper is another tool that can be added to a bulldozer. A ripper is on the back of the bulldozer and is used to break up surface rock, pavement, asphalt, or concrete.

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Grader

Graders, also called motor graders, are a type of heavy machinery used to build roads.

They are mostly used to make the surface of the soil even.

Between the front and back wheels of a grader is a horizontal blade that is lowered into the ground as the machine works.

The cabin where the driver sits is on top of the rear axle.

Motor graders are machines that move the earth. They can be used to clear snow or dirt from the roads, level the ground before putting down asphalt, or remove the top layer of soil that isn’t needed.

On construction sites, a bulldozer is used to make rough grades, while a grader is mostly used to finish grades. The blade on the grader can be changed, so it can be used with a high level of accuracy.

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Wheel Tractor Scraper

A wheel tractor scraper is a piece of equipment that is used to scrape the surface of the soil to make it flat.

The front part has a tractor with wheels, and the back part has a scraping system with a horizontal front blade, a conveyor belt, and a hopper for collecting soil.

When the front blade is put on the ground and the vehicle moves, the blade starts to dig into the ground above it.

A conveyor belt takes the dirt that is dug up and puts it in a hopper.

When the hopper is full, the back part is lifted off the ground, and the soil is dumped at a soil dump yard.

When the places to cut and dump are close to each other, the wheel tractor scraper is a very useful piece of earth-moving equipment.

Trencher

The trencher is a big piece of construction equipment that is used to dig holes in the ground.

The trenches are needed to lay the pipe or cable or to let water drain away.

There are both chain trenchers and wheeled trenchers that can be used to dig holes.

All of them have a long fixed arm with a chain for digging.

When the ground is too hard for an excavator to cut through, chain trenchers are used. Chain trenchers are used to cut wider trenches because the boom can be moved.

Trenchers with wheels have a metal wheel with a toothed edge around it.

When digging through hard soil, wheeled trenchers work better. Because it has a wheel, this tool can dig trenches of different depths.

There are both tracked and wheeled versions of both types of trenchers.

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Loader

Loaders are a type of construction equipment that are used to load materials onto dump boxes, dump trucks, and other vehicles.

Loaders are used in the construction industry to help move materials around a building site. Some of the things a loader moves are excavated soil, demolition waste, raw materials, and so on.

At the front of a loader is a large bucket on a short moving arm.

The loader can have either wheels or tracks.

Wheeled loaders are used on construction sites, while tracked or crawled loaders are needed in places where wheeled vehicles can’t go.

Tower Crane

Tower cranes are fixed cranes that are used to lift things when building tall buildings.

It’s easy to lift heavy things like concrete blocks, steel trusses, and frames to the right height.

They have a mast, which is the vertical support tower; a jib, which is the crane’s operating arm; a counter jib, which is the other arm that carries a counterweight on the back side of the crane; and an operator cabin where the crane can be controlled.

Paver

A paver, or asphalt paver, is a piece of road-building equipment used to lay down pavement.

The asphalt is constantly put into the paver’s feeding bucket by the dump truck.

The paver spreads the asphalt out evenly on the road surface and presses it down just a little bit.

For perfect compaction, you need a roller after putting down the asphalt layer.

Engineers and Contractors

These are just some of the tools that are used in the construction business.

Safatco has the tools you need to take care of your civil construction projects as your single-source solution.