The industrial revolution has not only brought benefits, progress, pollution, and all that color we know so well. It was also responsible for filling a real ward in the record books, especially when it comes to size. At different times, for the most varied reasons, man created gigantic machines, which impress by their size and weight. Check out a list with 10 large (literally) products of modern technology.
1 – The machine that rescued the miners in Chile
On October 13, 2010, the 33rd and last miner of Copiapó, Chile, was rescued in an event that won the pages of newspapers around the world. Few people, however, know the name of the beast that made the rescue possible. It is the Strata 950, a giant drill that drilled a tunnel into the heart of the mine where the miners were buried. The large machine needed to open a hole 63 cm in diameter and over 700m long, until it reached the area where the workers were. Rescue done, a success, but the machine needed to be dismantled. In fulfilling this mission, they had to call 42 trucks to take all the parts away.
2 – The largest plane in the world
The title of largest aircraft on the planet belongs to Russia. Or better saying, to the Soviet Union, since the plane was designed and built at the time of the Cold War, and the aircraft that will take this post from them is still to be born. It is the Antonov Na-225 Myria. It is 84 meters long, 88.4m wide, and 285 tons. The aircraft has such an imposing size due to the purpose with which it was created: to carry a space rocket, the “Buran Orbiter”.
3 – The largest excavator in the world
Size is really document when it comes to excavators, after all, the bigger it is, the more earth it is able to remove with each “push”. And the champion of this category does not have a very unusual name, is the D575A-3SD. Designed and produced in Japan, the powerful machine is almost 5m high, is over 12m wide and can move over 215 tons at once. With all this power, the machine is sent on missions such as removing absurd amounts of stone and rubble, whether in urban or natural environments.
4 – The largest truck in the world
If Japan boasts the largest excavator, Germany responds by having the largest truck. And it is used for one of the noblest (no irony) functions of our society: it is a garbage truck. It can load up to 400 tons of all sorts of waste, and it is relatively fast considering the size: it reaches 64 km/h. The name of our hero is Liebherr T 282B, and its manufacture does not exceed 75 units per year. If you are a mayor of some city and you are interested in booking one of these wonders, prepare the safe: it costs 3 million dollars (converting, gives something around 5.15 million reais, currently).
5 – The biggest motorcycle in the world
We left the field of the really “utilitarian” vehicles, and went to more funny curiosities, Estlio Guiness Book. The biggest motorcycle in the world is owned by Greg Dunham, an aficionado who had his favorite vehicle built in King-Size. Its dimensions: 4.5 meters high by 7.5 meters long. With a cost of 300 thousand dollars, the motorcycle weighs almost 3 tons. But this monument is not merely decorative: you can use the motorcycle perfectly. The creator said he built the motorcycle to prove his ability to do so to some friends, who doubted it was possible.
6 – The LHC (Hafdrons Colisor)
After much talk in science about the LHC (the famous particle accelerator, installed underground in France and Switzerland, which cost 10 billion dollars and intends to recreate, on a small scale, the emergence of the universe), it is time to pay tribute to it: it is the largest machine ever built by humans. It is the largest machine ever built by human beings. 27 km long, it was built by more than 10,000 scientists and is still in operation.
7 – The world’s largest mechanical spider
Created in France by a group called “Les Mecaniques Servants”, it weighs 37 tons and is 15m high. In 2008, she took her first walk in the open air over the streets of Liverpool, England. After the cinema and especially the cartoons had explored several times the imagination of a colossal spider, she finally got out of the picture.
8 – The world’s largest airship
The Dutch, who need to find so many creative solutions to live with the seas around them, have a great asset over water. It is the “Queen of the Netherlands”, a dredging ship built in 1998. It has earned the informal title of world’s largest “vacuum cleaner”, as it needs to remove waste such as tree trunks, stones and building rubble. The only difference is that it works underwater – it can search for objects up to 115m deep. The beast is 230 meters wide and 32 tons, which also classifies it as one of the largest water vehicles in the world.
9 – The world’s largest rotary excavator
Krupp, the same company that built cannons that were protagonists of wars in the 19th and 20th centuries, is the manufacturer of the largest soil borehole known. It is a real monster, 95 meters high, 215m long and 45 tons and a half. It took five years to be ready, its manufacture cost 100 million dollars, and is currently being employed in an open-pit mine in Germany.
10 – The largest industrial transport bridge
Used in coal mining, this equipment also boasts the title of largest in the world. If the LHC, installed underground, is the largest in the world, this machine called “Overburden Conveyor Bridge F60” is the largest mobile machine in the world. Before talking about numbers, suffice it to say that it had to be deactivated recently because it was spending too much energy, simply because it was on. Its dimensions: 502 meters long, 202m wide, 80m wide. The weight of this colossus is 11,000 tons, and it has been in use in Germany for over a year, but is currently out of action. The machine is bigger than the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
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