In just one quarry in Kuzbass, several trainloads of coal are mined daily. But before you get to the mineral, you need to lift and remove hundreds of thousands of tons of waste rock. This is exactly the work that BelAZ trucks do. Their carrying capacity depends on the series - the world's largest mining dump truck 75710 transports up to 450 tons. Together with its cargo, the supermachine weighs more than a Boeing 747 and can literally move mountains.
At a coal mine in Western Siberia, work does not stop for a minute. In one shift, the dump truck transports so much rock that it could fill several Olympic swimming pools. BelAZ trucks ply through the quarry day and night - without weekends or holidays. During shift changes, drivers do not even turn off the engines, and it often happens that the cars work for several days in a row.
How are these monsters made?
The construction of a peat engineering plant near Minsk began 75 years ago - in 1947. The Belarusian automobile plant was built in an open field - far from large quarries, metallurgical plants and large power plants. But over time, the unremarkable settlement of Zhodino became the place where the largest quarry equipment plant in the world and the only one in the territory of the former USSR is located.
Most of the parts for a unique dump truck are not purchased, but are made at the factory. The technological process was built and debugged back in the 1960s: parts are transferred from one machine to another according to the technological chain. True, today's models require new equipment and new approaches to production. Therefore, the interiors of BelAZ are not made linearly, as before, but in one place, on modern five-axis machines. The turner-setter just needs to correctly install the workpiece, and then the computer will do everything itself.
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After the finished part is removed from the machine, it is sent to the measurement laboratory, where each product undergoes strict control. A special probe with an artificial ruby at the end carries out an inspection and checks the parameters of the product with an electronic drawing in the computer. Only if the deviation is within the normal range (hundredths of a millimeter), the part receives a certificate of conformity.
Photo: Aliaksandr Kushner / Shutterstock.com
All new parts are tested in an experimental workshop, where they are brutally abused, that is, tests are carried out: they are compressed, stretched, tested for strength and wear resistance. Before a gear goes into production, testers will mercilessly destroy about a hundred of its “sisters.”
Miners are constantly demanding higher and higher lifting capacities from mining trucks. Designers have to come up with more and more new technological solutions, metal scientists have to constantly invent innovative materials. If 60 years ago the first model of a dump truck could transport only 27 tons, then in 1977 the carrying capacity was already up to 110 tons, and in 2013 the giant BelAZ-Bogatyr, with a capacity of 450 tons, came off the assembly line.
BelAZ
BelAZ supplies its equipment to Ukraine mainly through Ukrainian. This is the Ukrainian subsidiary of the Belarusian enterprise Promagroleasing, whose main shareholder is the Development Bank of the Republic of Belarus.
At the same time, BelAZ had a service network to service its equipment. Since July, the Belarusian holding has withdrawn from the founders and beneficiaries of the largest service company in Ukraine, registered in Krivoy Rog, Dnepropetrovsk region. This center not only provides service, but also has the right to sell BelAZ equipment.
Now the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine has recorded a change in the composition of the founders of this company. Instead of the BelAZ holding, it became OJSC Management Company of the Lidselmash Holding (100% of shares). And the beneficiary was the Ministry of Industry of Belarus, because it owns the shares of Lidselmash.
According to financial statements, in 2022 the company received 492.6 million hryvnia of income and 70.7 million hryvnia of net profit (equivalent to 17.5 and 2.5 million dollars, respectively).
There is also another company in Krivoy Rog that sells spare parts and repairs equipment. Until July 2022, its beneficiary and founder was also the BelAZ holding, and now Lidselmash.
The largest dump truck in the world
BelAZ-75710 was twice included in the Guinness Book of Records: as the largest two-axle dump truck in the world, and also due to the largest body of a mining dump truck. At the factory, the body is made of high-strength alloy steel. It can only be cut with a plasma or high-temperature gas cutter. The sheets are given the desired shape using a huge press that presses with a force of 1000 tons. The bent parts are connected using very large welding machines, but the body is not completed: the customer receives it disassembled in three parts and assembles it at home using bolts. Otherwise, the body would not fit on any railway platform and it would be impossible to deliver it.
BelAZ up close resembles a two-story building with a staircase - a house on eight wheels. The height of each wheel is about 4 m. For the BelAZ-75710 series, each tire weighs more than 5 tons, about the same as an African elephant. Tires 59/80R63 are the largest in the world.
Photo: AleksSafronov / Shutterstock.com
By the way, tires for BelAZ are made at another Belarusian plant - in Bobruisk. Several types of rubber with different properties are used in production. The material that goes into one tire would be enough to create more than 600 passenger car tires. A five-ton wheel can be installed in just 10 seconds - just tighten 24 nuts. The dump truck arrives to the customer disassembled, because the tires alone take up an entire wagon.
The engine compartment of the miracle machine is so spacious that a person can climb into it. Two BelAZ traction motors, on which gearboxes are installed, consume 1400 kW. This electricity would be enough to light 23,000 light bulbs. The car is supplied with this amount of energy by a huge internal combustion diesel engine. The principle of its operation is the same as in a regular car. Only there are more cylinders - 16 pieces, each volume is almost 4 liters.
At the same time, BelAZ is a giant mobile power plant. The dump truck has an electromechanical transmission: it burns fuel, generates electric current and transmits it through wires to electric motors that are installed directly on the wheels, and they set this whole colossus in motion.
The cabin of the mining dump truck is also very spacious, but in general it is like a regular car. It has an automatic transmission, but there are three pedals. Two of them are brake pedals: main and emergency. It is very rare, but there are cases when both brakes fail. To avoid disaster, all roads in the quarry are covered with mountains of waste rock. If the brake fails, the driver sends the car into this obstacle and the BelAZ rests against it, like a bull against a fence.
MAZ
The Minsk Automobile Plant withdrew from the founders and beneficiaries of the Ukrainian company, which was registered on May 19, 2010 in Kyiv.
Instead of MAZ, the founders included OJSC Minsk Automatic Line Plant named after Pyotr Masherov (99% of shares) and Zhodino OJSC Forging Heavy Forging Plant (1% of shares), which is part of the Belavtomaz holding together with MAZ itself.
Now the ultimate beneficial owner of the Ukrainian subsidiary of MAZ, in accordance with the State Register of Ukraine, is the State Property Committee, because it is the owner of the shares of the two new founders of the Ukrainian company.
The main activity of the MAZ-Ukraine Trading House remains the same - the sale of cars and light motor vehicles.
The change of owners and beneficiaries now allows this company to participate in tenders for the supply of passenger, cargo and special vehicles, which are carried out at the expense of the state and local budget. According to Ukrainian legislation, a company, when providing documents to participate in a tender, must indicate whether it is the object of international sanctions.
According to the financial report for 2022 (for 2022 has not yet been approved), the MAZ-Ukraine Trading House received an income of 1.6 billion hryvnia and 73 million hryvnia of net profit (respectively 57 and 2.5 million dollars in equivalent at the exchange rate for the end of 2022).
There is currently no information on MAZ’s official website about dealers of its products in Ukraine. It is known that one of them is still Ukrainian, the founder of which is the foreign private enterprise “GES”, registered in Minsk. Its owner is Russian citizen Vasily Smetanin, who lives in Moscow. He is also the beneficial owner of the Ukrainian enterprise AvtoMAZ-Ukraine.
It is this company that is participating in a repeated tender for the supply of buses to Nikolaev. Last year, the city authorities of Nikolaev, after a meeting at the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine, were forced to cancel the results of the tender, which was won by the Ukrainian LLC Suchasni Vantazhivki (“modern trucks”), also a MAZ dealer.
MOT for $100,000
Maintenance of each monster costs approximately $100,000 per year. BelAZ operates in difficult conditions. The rock is very heavy, hard, and has sharp edges. As a result, over the course of several years, the body of the dump truck is worn down by the stones almost to the point of holes. Approximately every four years, the body is sheathed with new sheets of metal.
Any breakdown of such a monster can stop the work of half of the quarry. Therefore, the condition of BelAZ vehicles is monitored around the clock in a special situation center. The screen displays the parameters of each car: location, load, fuel reserve and even engine temperature. If the operator sees a malfunction, he will contact the driver who is in the cab. Maintenance includes frequent cleaning of air filters, through which the dump truck “inhales” hundreds of cubic meters of air per minute and ventilates the engines. From the outside they look like headlights, but in fact they are the “lights” of the car.
According to BelAZ manufacturers, every third mining dump truck in the world is produced by them. This Belarusian supermachine can be found in hundreds of quarries in dozens of countries around the world. He is a little clumsy, gluttonous and almost always dirty, but he is excellent at mining coal, bringing light and warmth to people.
The manufacturing process of BelAZ vehicles can be seen on the “Science” channel - in the “Anatomy of Monsters” program.
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Reviews
There are no reviews of cars from this manufacturer on the World Wide Web. After all, there aren’t that many of these cars at all, and their drivers and owners, apparently, don’t like to write reviews on the Internet. Only reviews written by journalists who drove these dump trucks are available (exclusively as passenger observers, because in order to be allowed to drive, you need to undergo appropriate training).
Based on their reviews, we can conclude that 130 tons or more is a fairly serious indicator. It is impossible to “pull out” a vehicle that is so heavily loaded if it skids on ice or slippery soil; it cannot be stopped instantly in an extreme situation. For this reason, even in the case of a 12% slope on a descent, the maximum permissible driving speed does not exceed 24 km/h.
Models[edit]
BelAZ-548A (1967)
BelAZ-75214
BelAZ-7513
BelAZ-75450
Discontinued models[edit]
Mine dump trucks[edit]
- MAZ-525, 25 t (1958–1965)
- BelAZ-540, 27 t (1965)
- BelAZ-540A
- BelAZ-540B, 45 t
- BelAZ-548A, 40 t (1967)
- BelAZ-548B, 65 t
- BelAZ-549, 75–80 t (1969)
- BelAZ-7519, 110–120 t (1977)
- BelAZ-7521, 180 t (1979)
- BelAZ-75211, 170–220 t (1983)
- BelAZ-75214
- BelAZ-7522
- BelAZ-75303
- BelAZ-75483
Current lineup[edit]
Mine dump trucks[edit]
- BelAZ-7540, 30 t
- BelAZ-7545
, 45 t - BelAZ-7547, 42–45 t
- BelAZ-7555, 55–60 t (since 1994)
- BelAZ-7557
, 90 t - BelAZ-7513, 110–130 t (since 1996)
- BelAZ-7517
, 154–160 t - BelAZ-7530, 180–220 t
- BelAZ-7531
, 240 t - BelAZ-7560, 320–360 t
- BelAZ-7558, 90 t
- BelAZ-7571, 450 t (since 2013)
Note. New models [5] are highlighted in bold.
Construction and road construction equipment[edit]
- MoAZ-4048, front loader, 7.5 t
- BelAZ-7822, Front loader, 7 tons
- BelAZ-7823, Wheeled bulldozer
- Belaz 78221 Front loader
- MoAZ-60148, scraper
- MoAZ-60007, scraper
- Concrete mixer trucks
Other cars[edit]
- MoAZ-75296, low-profile mining concrete mixer truck.
- BelAZ-74212, aircraft tug
Other products[edit]
- Articulated dump trucks
- Underground machines
- Mining and unloading machines
- Vehicles for metallurgical plants
- Freight cars: covered hoppers, gondola cars, platforms.
- BelAZ-7540
- BelAZ-7555
- BelAZ-75570
- Front loader BelAZ-78221
- Concrete mixer truck MoAZ-75296
- Aviation tug BelAZ-74212
