General remarks on machinery running on tyres and caterpillars. First part

Abstract

The continued development of machinery takes place usually in a sustained and progressive manner. However, occasionally new possibilities emerge, which open up new fields and require entirely new techniques, both in the use, construction and design of the new equipment. A particular case is the adoption of wheels with pneumatic tyres on bulldozers, as a result of their use in loading units. The changes that have occurred in these last ten years have been so important that it may well be said that until recently the use of pneumatic tyres on bulldozers and loaders had not been clearly defined, in terms of their functions. At present the main characteristics that differentiate machines of the same type using tyres and those using caterpillars can be definitely enunciated. One of the main factors is that machinery using tyres must be limited to very specific tasks, whilst equipment using continuous tracks can carry out bulldozing and loading jobs under highly varied conditions.