Dozers and crawler tractors have many things in common. In fact, crawler tractors with blades designed for pushing on the front are often called bulldozers. But dozers are usually larger and are designed just for earth and material moving, while many crawler tractors can be used for a variety of purposes by changing the blade attachment to things like buckets, forks or other pieces of equipment.

Dozers are designed to do one thing and that's move earth by pushing it. Unlike bucket tractors that scoop earth and lift it in a bucket to move it from place to place, dozers merely push what they want to move. The blade on front is slightly curved to make the movement easier. The blade isn't designed to lift the materials but only push it forward and out of the way.

The blades on dozers are curved from top to bottom and differ from the blades on things like snow plows that are curved to the side. Snow plow blades are designed to scrape and then funnel the snow to the edge. The blades on dozers are curved in such a way that the materials don't funnel to the side, but instead keep sliding back down the blade to avoid spilling over the top of it. This keeps the dirt or other materials in front of the blade and allows it to be pushed straight ahead.

Dozers, like crawler tractors, run on tracks rather than wheels. This makes them the ideal earth-moving equipment in many different situations. Construction and earth-moving equipment with tracks do less damage to the ground that they run over. In a muddy situation, for instance, a piece of heavy equipment on wheels is going to sink at least a little at the points where the tires touch the ground. Because tracks distribute the weight more evenly from the front to the back of the equipment, there will be less sinking, rutting and gouging. This holds true in situations where there's no mud, but very loose dirt as is usually found at most construction sites. Less gouging and rutting means safer, smoother operation of the other types of equipment that are on wheels.

Dozers with tracks also can be used in situations where using wheeled vehicles might be impractical. Very rocky terrain, uneven, slightly graded or rough terrain could prove dangerous for equipment on wheels. But dozers, because of their tracks, get excellent traction and are much less prone to tipping because their weight is distributed evenly along the length of the tracks. And because tracks essentially have dozens of treads and points of contact at one time instead of just a few that tires have, they can handle things like snow, ice, mud and loose soil much better. Work could go on somewhere with those issues with dozers when it would have to stop with other types of equipment.

Overall, a dozer is most useful when you simply need earth or other materials pushed, and you have other equipment like bucket tractors to lift the dirt to put it in a dump truck or take it to a fill area.

Photo Credits: Dafydd359

Originally posted 2010-04-12 03:45:56. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Related Posts

• Backhoe, Mini-Excavator or Excavator A backhoe is a piece of earth moving equipment designed for digging. There is a common misconception that the entire vehicle is known as a backhoe when actually it refers only to the attachment with the digger on the end. This two-part arm with its bucket used for digging is......
• Which Tubing Bender is Best A tubing bender is designed only to bend tubing. You should avoid using a pipe bender to bend tubing unless it has a variety of dies so that you can get the exact size you need for the tubing. Pipe and tubing are measured differently so that a pipe bender......
• Green Building Materials Green Construction is the practice of building in a way that increases efficiency of the use of materials like energy, water and other materials and resources while reducing the impact on human health and the environment during the process of building through more efficient design, site selection, construction, operation, maintenance......
• Which Type of Snow Pusher is Best? A snow pusher is a piece of equipment that does exactly what it sounds like-- it pushes snow where you want it to go. To understand the difference between a snow pusher and a snow plow, picture the type of snowplow you see clearing the highway in bad weather. These......
• Choose the Right Pipe Bender A pipe bender is a handy piece of equipment if you find the need to bend pipe for either functional or aesthetic reasons. You need to choose a pipe bender according to the size of the pipe you want to bend and the radius of the bends that you want.......

Related Websites

• When are Crawlers Necessary Crawlers are tracked vehicles. They are also often called tractor crawlers or track-laying tractors. Any type of tractor or skid loader that uses tracks can be referred to as a crawler. Crawlers have the continuous track that you might picture when you think of a large army tank, rather than......
• The Purpose of Excavators Excavators are huge pieces of industrial machinery designed for digging that are often just called diggers in the construction industry. They consist of a large chassis with a cab in which the operator sits, a track system for movement and a boom arm with a digging bucket on the end.......
• Uses of a Backhoe A backhoe is a piece of earth moving equipment with a very specific design. Backhoes are often also called diggers and excavators, though excavators are actually a different piece of equipment. A backhoe is a digging bucket mounted on the end of an arm that usually has a hinge within......
• Screws and Screwdrivers 104 Reusing and Adapting Screws Renew a Screw - When you remove and reseat a Phillips head or slotted screw, the result is often a slot that has become damaged, especially when the screwdriver blade did not fit into the slot properly in the first place. If you do not have......
• OnPar Golf Touchscreen GPS User Reviews Send this to a friend OnPar Golf Touchscreen GPS Manufacturer: OnPar Customer Rating: List Price: $479.95 Sale Price: $319.99 Availibility: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Now Product Description OnPar is the first GPS touchscreen introduced to the gold market. We took a fresh look at......

Online Stores

• Lights & Lighting Building Materials & Supplies Green Construction Store
• Hoists Tools & Light Equipment Green Construction Store
• Concrete Cut-Off Saws Saws Tools & Light Equipment Green Construction Store
• Kids Snow Rakes, Shovels & Hoes Garden Tools & Equipment Gardening & Plants Yard, Garden & Outdoor Living
• Used Snow Blowers Outdoor Power Equipment Yard, Garden & Outdoor Living Nursery

If you liked this article, vote for it on del.icio.us and stumbleupon.



Categories:

Green Construction, Tools and Equipment

Tags:

blade, buckets, bulldozers, construction sites, crawler tractors, dozers, earth moving equipment, heavy equipment, loose dirt, snow plow blades, snow plows