Establishing a Methodology for Experimental Measuring of Loads and Stress State Determination on Clamp Dogs of Carrying Structures

The experimental measuring of working loads upon the parts of rotating excavator is a complicated procedure given the complexity of the construction of the excavator and the specificity of exploitation conditions. Therefore, there are no uniform solutions and methods for this purpose, and any proposed solution is of great benefit to excavator users, as well to science studying this issue. This paper presents a preset methodology for measuring working loads of the clamp dogs on the carrying structure of the working wheel at the excavator used in surface coal mining. This methodology uses the default settings implicit to the strain gage method, which records the stresses resulting from external loads occurring within the clamp dogs’ material using strain gages and measuring equipment. Within this concept, the paper shows the manner of determining the measuring points and setting up the strain gages on both clamp dogs, the connecting with the measuring installation and the equipment. Employing diagrams, the paper presents the measurement results of static and dynamic loads, as well as induced stress state by them.