Excavator Stability and Lift capacity rating: By: B.

Ravindra

Machine stability is one of the most important measures of a well designed machine and lift
capacity is its consequence. Stability is the final outcome of how total weight of machine is
distributed over an excavator. Since undercarriage of an excavator is never a square and tilt
lines distances from slew center differ between front and side, lift capacity is measured
both over front and over side. Lift capacity rating over side is often lower and so is a
considered a better measure of functional stability. Lift capacity chart guides an operator
on safe lifting loads at a various distances from the slew center. Since safety is involved, ISO
10567 lays down strict guidelines on how and what values are to be reported and what are
the safety factors to consider. ISO 10567 uses balance point condition to record the tipping
value. The standard also details methods for testing and calculating the tipping loads.
Below is an extract from a manufacturers catalog:

When loads are lifted close to the machine, the maximum lift capacity is no longer limited
by machine tipping limit but by the cylinder pressures generated by the load. When the
cylinder pressure exceeds the hydraulic cylinder relief setting the load is not sustainable
and constitutes the hydraulic limit. Both tipping and hydraulic limits are measured
simultaneously and lower of these values are considered for rating purposes. For reporting,
rated lift capacity values, test values are reduced by 25% if machine hit the tipping limit
first and by 13% if hydraulic limit is lower than tipping limit. The above figure uses SAE
J1097 which was superseded by ISO 10567 in 2008. Manufacturers distinguish limiting
condition used for rating chart. In the above extract hydraulic limit values are distinguished
by * ahead of the value.
As can be expected, excavators with blade, have front lift capacity predominantly hydraulic
limited. Over side, regardless of machine being with or without blade, the values are
mostly tipping limited. Also, lift capacity changes from hydraulic limit to stability/tipping
limit with increasing lift radius. While it is generally true that by increasing the
counterweight one can make machine more stable, there are limits to such a solution. A
machine with poor stability arising from grossly under-dimensioned undercarriage cannot
be easily corrected by increasing the counterweight alone. Also, increasing counterweight
has to take into account the fact that, while machine stability changes linearly with distance
(to CG of counterweight), rotational inertia changes by square of the same distance. Inertia
impacts machine dynamic performance and efficiency of slew cycle.

Given the importance of stability as a key measure for excavator performance there are
instances where, reported values are either inflated or values are published without
sufficient testing. A customer has no way of telling if manufacturer published data is
correct without actually repeating the test. We detail a method below that comes close to
providing an easy way to check if manufacturer published data are indeed correct. The
method uses the difference between front and side tipping capacities together with
published track dimensions to estimate the weight of the machine. This calculated
operating weight is checked against the reported operating weight. It is expected that these
two values should be within 5% of each other. A sample calculation at the end of this
document for 20ton excavators from different manufacturers shows that this procedure is
indeed useful.

Differences between front (over FTL) and side lift (over STL) capacities are primarily due:

a. FTL (front tilt line)and STL (side tilt line) not being a perfect square
b. CG of undercarriage not being collinear to the slew axis
Considering undercarriage CG to be collinear to slew axis, is not only a reasonable
assumption but paves way to define the lift capacities purely on STL and FTL differences
alone as detailed below.

Scope:

The procedure described below checks pair-wise accuracy of “stability limited” rating
values published in Lift Capacity Rating Charts of manufacturers per ISO 10567 for
Hydraulic Crawler Excavators.

Limitations of the procedure:

1. Pair-wise values mean = a pair of (Rating over front, Rating over side) values for same
Load Point Radius (LPR). This procedure does not calculate individual lift capacity
values. This means, when published values do not tally with the calculated check value,
 it is not possible to deduce using this procedure which of the ratings are wrong – either
one of the pair or both the rating values could be wrong.
2. For hydraulic limited lift capacity rating, formula below defines only an upper limit for
pair-wise consistency.
3. The procedure is limited to Crawler hydraulic excavators without dozer blade. In
machines equipped with dozer blade most of the ratings are hydraulic limited and this
procedure cannot be applied directly.

Key Assumptions:

CG of Undercarriage is assumed to be collinear with the Axis of rotation (AR). This

procedure is still valid if the distance between Undercarriage CG and AR is very small
compared to the total distance between Rear and Front Tipping lines.

Symmetric undercarriage is a reasonable assumption. Since ISO requires that if the

undercarriage is unsymmetrical, the machine should be positioned in the least stable
position for tipping limit calculations; our assumption of symmetry should give a
conservative value.

Variable names (Refer fig below)

Front and Side tipping conditions for same LPR) are super-imposed. The hatched areas are
tracks in side tipping condition.

1. Wf = (Front Lift capacity Rating / 0.75) (known)

2. Ws = (Side Lift capacity rating / 0.75) (known)
3. LPR = Load Point Radius (front) = Load Point radius (side) (known)
4. a = Distance between FTL and RTL
5. b = Distance between ST
Calculating ‘a’:

a is the distance between FTL (front tipping line) and RTL (rear tipping line). For track type
undercarriage, per ISO 10567, the line joining the centers of support idlers is FTL and
center line of sprockets is RTL. Since we are assuming the undercarriage to be symmetrical,
FTL and RTL are equidistant from the slew center and

a = Distance between tumblers (distance between sprocket and idler centers)

Calculating ‘b’:

ISO 10567 for track type undercarriages gives the side tipping lines (TL) for balance point
calculations as below:
For right-extreme track scheme, assuming ‘b’ to be equal to Track Gauge (distance between
left and right track center lines) wouldn’t give very wrong results. For other two track
chain configurations, use the table below for calculating ‘b’.

b = Track Gauge + (A or B)

Weight A (mm) B (mm)

6 - 10 tons 102 132
11 - 14 tons 143 179
15 - 19 tons 171 215
20 - 22 tons 171 219
22 - 25 tons 185 239
26 - 30 tons 205 257
31 - 50 tons 247 307
51 - 75 tons 274 356

Now with a and b calculated Wf, Ws and LPR from published lift capacity data; one can
calculate the following values:

m = Wf. (LPR - a/2) where Wf = (Front published rating / 0.75)

n = Ws. (LPR - b/2) where Ws = (Side published rating / 0.75)
k = [(a – b)/2]
Wc = [(m – n)/k]

Now check if Wc ≤ Wp where Wc is calculated Operating weight and Wp is Published

Operating Weight of machine.

If Wc and Wp are within ±5% of each other as set out by ISO standard, then you have a
valid pair-wise accurate stability rating. Let’s look at a sample of manufacturer’s
stability data and see how they fare with our accuracy check. While data is from real
machines, all the model names have been changed:
 Excavator Models -> C203LD H200LZ D225LS K210LS H210LY V210LV
Wp, Operating weight Published kg 21550.0 20400.0 21500.0 21990.0 22650.0 22000.0
Lift capacity @ Front kg 6466.7 6946.7 6280.0 6533.3 6933.3 7200.0
Lift capacity @ Side or over 360° kg 3866.7 4240.0 3906.7 4066.7 3920.0 4533.3
LPR, Load Point Radius m 7.5 7.0 8.0 7.5 7.5 7.5
a/2 m 1.8 1.8 1.8 1.8 1.825 1.83
Track gauge m 2.4 2.4 2.4 2.4 2.39 2.39
A m 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.185 0.185
b/2 m 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.2875 1.2875
Wc, Operating Weight Calculated kg 22985.0 21225.8 23143.6 21281.5 27895.2 23337.6
Variation 6.2% 3.9% 7.1% -3.3% 18.8% 5.7%

For other pairs of data that are hydraulic limit rating values, including those that have
one of the pair stability limited, Wc should be definitely less than Wp. If it is not then,
one or both the published lift capacity values are wrong. Test engineers measuring lift
capacity can use this equation to estimate side tipping limit if front is already tested
accurately.