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A dumper or dumper truck (
British English
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...
) or dump truck (
North American English
North American English (NAmE, NAE) is the most generalized variety of the English language as spoken in the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), v ...
) is a truck designed for carrying bulk material, often on building sites. A dumper has a body which tilts or opens at the back for unloading and is usually an open 4-wheeled vehicle with the load skip in front of the driver. The skip can tip to dump the load; this is where the name "dumper" comes from. They are normally diesel powered. A towing eye is fitted for secondary use as a site tractor. Dumpers with
rubber tracks are used in special circumstances and provide a more even distribution of weight compared to tires. Continuous tracks allow the operator to carry heavier payload on slick, snowy, or muddy surfaces, and are popular in some countries.
Background
One of the earliest British dumpers was the
Muir-Hill
Muir Hill (Engineers) Ltd was a general engineering company based at Old Trafford, Manchester, England. It was established in the early 1920s and specialised in products to expand the use of the Fordson tractor, which in the pre-war days included ...
, which was based on the Fordson tractor with 2 cubic yard bucket, driving on the front axle and steered by the back wheels. Devised in 1927, and on sale by 1931, it gained a lot of versatility when in 1933 Dunlop introduced 'tractor-style' pneumatic low pressure tyres. This allowed it to travel on tarmac roads or off road, which was of particular advantage on construction sites. Originally advertised as the "dumping tractor", it soon became known as the Muir-Hill dumper.
Modern dumpers have payloads of up to and usually steer by articulating at the middle of the
chassis
A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of an artificial object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpart ...
(pivot steering). They have multi-cylinder diesel engines, some turbocharged,
electric
Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by ...
start and
hydraulic
Hydraulics (from Greek: Υδραυλική) is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counte ...
s for tipping and steering and are usually four-wheel drive. An
A-frame
An A-frame is a basic structure designed to bear a load in a lightweight economical manner. The simplest form of an A-frame is two similarly sized beams, arranged in an angle of 45 degrees or less, attached at the top, like an uppercase lette ...
known as a ROPS (Roll-Over Protection) frame, may be fitted over the seat to protect the driver if the dumper rolls over. Some dumpers have FOPS (Falling Object Protection) as well. Lifting skips are available for discharging above ground level. In the 1990s dumpers with swivel skips, which could be rotated to tip sideways, became popular, especially for working in narrow sites such as
road works
Roadworks (called road work or road construction in the United States) occur when part of the road, or in rare cases, the entire road, has to be occupied for work relating to the road, most often in the case of road surface repairs. In the U ...
. Dumpers are the most common cause of serious accidents involving construction
plant
Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...
.
Nowadays these vehicles are also called "dumper" in some mainland
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
an languages.
See also
*
Articulated hauler
An articulated hauler, articulated dump truck (ADT), or sometimes a dump hauler, is a very large heavy-duty type of dump truck used to transport loads over rough terrain, and occasionally on public roads. The vehicle usually has all-wheel drive and ...
*
Dump truck
A dump truck, known also as a dumping truck, dump trailer, dumper trailer, dump lorry or dumper lorry or a dumper for short, is used for transporting materials (such as dirt, gravel, or demolition waste) for construction as well as coal. A t ...
*
Haul truck
Haul trucks are off-highway, rigid dump trucks specifically engineered for use in high-production mining and heavy-duty construction environments. Haul trucks are also used for transporting construction equipment from job site to job site. Some ar ...
External links
Youtube video of starting an old-type dumper after over 4 months unused
References
{{Reflist
Engineering vehicles
Construction equipment