Short tail swing Komatsu excavators chosen for tight sites
20/03/2003

In recent months, David Lewis Civil Engineering of South Wales has changed almost 10% of its dedicated Komatsu excavator fleet from conventional to short tail swing machines.

The company specialises in the installation of large pipelines and underground storage tanks, principally on behalf of Welsh Water, and could see from its contract forecast that an increasing amount of work would require machines able to operate in confined areas and on single carriageway roads. It was obvious these would be situations where the existing Komatsu PC210 excavators would experience some difficulty in working effectively.

The machine chosen by David Lewis as the most versatile for its upcoming work is the 13.6 tonne PC128US and a total of five units have so far been delivered by UK distributor, Marubeni-Komatsu of Redditch. In addition, the company has taken one of the larger 20 tonne PC228US short tail swing machines.

The PC128US is powered by a Komatsu 4-cylinder diesel engine developing 64 kW (86 hp) @ 2200 rpm and has a tail swing radius of 1.48 m, 650 mm less than Komatsu’s conventional 13 tonne excavator. With its re-positioned working equipment and steep boom raising angle, the PC128US is able to successfully operate within a width of just 3.5 m.

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