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Mankind has long learned to create machines that perform various tasks and make our lives easier. They are used on the ground, underground, in the sky, and even in space. Today we will talk about the most gigantic of them – those that can be called a masterpiece of engineering. From the largest ship to a crane with a lifting capacity of 20,000 tons. Read to the end, there is something to be surprised!
Prelude FLNG is the largest gas platform
Prelude FLNG is the world’s largest floating gas platform, built from over 260,000 tons of steel and measuring 488 meters long and 74 meters wide.
Created by Royal Dutch Shell, KOGAS and Inpex in 2013, this behemoth is valued at around $12.6 billion.
The platform is used 200 km from the coast of Australia, with its help drilling wells and extracting gas, the operation will last at least another couple of decades. This monster machine is impressive when compared to other man-made objects in the ocean. For example, the displacement of the platform is five times greater than that of the Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, the largest warships in the world.
Le Tourneau L-2350 – the largest wheel loader
The Le Tourneau L-2350 is yet another 260-tonne monster car whose photos don’t do justice to its size.
According to the Guinness Book of Records, this is the largest four-wheeled vehicle ever built. Le Tourneau L-2350 has a carrying capacity of about 80 tons – that’s about 30 cars. Its tires are huge – 4 meters high and 1.5 wide. The bucket is also massive – “in one bite” it is able to pick up almost 75 tons of ore, as much as five standard dump trucks can accommodate.
The hulk is powered by a 16-cylinder 65-liter diesel engine with about 2300 horsepower. Such power requires serious replenishment – the tank of this beast holds almost 4000 liters of diesel fuel.
NASA Tracked Transporter
The tracked transporter is a massive self-propelled platform that is used to transport NASA rocket ships. The monster car cost about $14 million and is the largest land vehicle on the planet.
The transporter weighs 2721 tons and is moved by 8 massive tracks driven by 16 traction motors. It requires a team of 30 engineers and technicians to start the machine, and it is controlled simultaneously from two cabins located on both sides of the platform.
This is a rather slow transport, the speed of which without cargo does not exceed 3.3 km / h.
Bagger 288 – the second largest land transport in the world
The Bagger 288 bucket wheel excavator is one of the heaviest machines in history, weighing 13,500 tons.
The construction of the excavator in 1978 cost $100 million. Designed for stripping and mining, the Bagger can produce up to 240,000 tons of coal a day, which shows just how monumental this machine is.
In terms of dimensions, the Bagger 288 is second only to the newer Bagger 293, which is considered the heaviest bucket wheel excavator and weighs 14,200 tons.
international space station
Not all of the huge machines on this list are on Earth, some are in space. The mass of the ISS is about 420 tons. Dimensions – 108.4 by 74 meters.
The International Space Station was launched into low Earth orbit in 1998. It is a massive and impressive feat of engineering and has been home to countless astronauts over the decades. Since its launch, the station has been visited by 236 people from 18 countries.
BelAZ 75710 – the largest dump truck
We’ve seen massive machines that can dig and huge excavators to load rock, but what about vehicles big enough to carry it all?
BelAZ 75710 is the largest mining dump truck in existence. The ultra-class truck, which requires eight wheels to move, can transport 450 tons of rock at a time.
It is powered by two 65-litre 16-cylinder MTU diesel engines, but due to its weight (840.5 tons fully loaded), the BelAZ top speed is only 65 km/h.
Komatsu D575A – super bulldozer
Komatsu D575A Superdozer is the largest bulldozer on the planet, which has been in mass production since 1991.
This monster digger is 5 meters high, 11 meters long and 7.3 meters wide. It is equipped with a 1150 horsepower 12-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine and is capable of moving 96 cubic meters of material in one pass. The tank holds 2100 liters of fuel, the total weight of the machine is 150 tons.
Overburden Conveyor Bridge F60
Has the list impressed you yet? How about a conveyor bridge? In fact, the F60 is a huge conveyor belt that is used to transport overburden (waste) during coal mining.
The F60 is the longest self-propelled vehicle ever built. It is also one of the heaviest – the weight is 13,600 tons. A total of five such conveyor bridges were built, and some of them are still used in production in Germany and the USA.
Bertha is the largest tunnel drilling machine
This is Bertha’s model, who has been underground all her life, so it’s not easy to find pictures of her. The dimensions of the giant were 98 x 18 m, weight – 6350 tons.
The grandiose tunnel drilling rig was built in Japan for the United States for a massive project in Alaska. The construction of the 2,830 meter long tunnel was started in 2013, Berta passed up to 10 meters of rock per day. Production was stopped several times due to various problems, but in the end the tunnel was opened in 2019, and the car was melted down – the raw materials obtained were used to build a multi-level highway above the new tunnel. The total cost of the project amounted to 2 billion dollars.
Seawise Giant – the longest ship
This tanker has many names. He was originally known as Seawise Giant, then Happy Giant, Jahre Viking, Knock Nevis and Mont. But one thing remains unchanged – this is the longest ship that has ever existed. The giant was built in 1979 and decommissioned in 2010, he lived an interesting life, including temporary flooding during the Iran-Iraq war.
The Seawise Giant is also considered the largest and heaviest ship of any type. It had a displacement of 657,019 tons and was so large that it could not pass the English Channel, the Suez Canal or the Panama Canal. To give you an idea of the size of the Seawise Giant, it is longer than the Empire State Building, the third tallest skyscraper in the United States.
The Large Hadron Collider
The Large Hadron Collider is officially the largest experimental facility in the world.
The grand structure, almost 27 kilometers long, is located in a tunnel under the border of France and Switzerland. The depth of the tunnel is from 50 to 175 meters. The collider is used to test particle physics theories and explore unresolved scientific questions. More than 10 thousand scientists from 100 countries of the world participate in its operation.
Antonov An-225 Mriya – the largest aircraft
Antonov An-225 “Mriya” is the largest jet aircraft in the history of aviation. This is a strategic transport aircraft capable of taking to the skies carrying up to 254 tons of cargo on board.
The wingspan of the An-225 is 88 meters, but despite its crazy dimensions, it can reach a cruising speed of up to 853 km per hour. This is not only one of the largest machines ever built by man, but also a real miracle of technology.
Crane “Taysun” – the largest crane
This monster crane holds the record for lifting the heaviest loads, with a safe load of 20,000 tons! Developed by DHII, Taisun is used to assemble key parts in the construction of huge ships. The crane is now in operation in China and holds three records for lifting the heaviest loads of all time: 20,133, 17,100 and 14,00 tons.
Traditionally – the largest dragon
It’s not really a car in the truest sense of the word, but that doesn’t make the Traddino any less impressive.
A huge fire-breathing animatronic dragon, created by Zollner Elektronik AG, was listed in the Guinness Book of Records in 2014 as the largest walking robot in the world. It is eight meters high and 15 meters long.
FAST is the largest spherical radio telescope in the world.
The FAST spherical radio telescope is a 500-meter metal dish, the area of which is composed of 4500 small panels. The telescope is located in the southwest of China, it can move in real time to receive signals from different directions.
The impressive engineering feat is estimated to have cost the PRC about $180 million, including the cost of relocating local residents who lived in the area prior to construction. FAST has one task – to search for potential radio signals from extraterrestrial life in distant galaxies.
