Komatsu rolled out its largest motor grader for the U.S. earlier this year, re-entering a market it had exited years back.
The 104,000-pound GD955-7 grader is designed for mining, primarily building and maintaining roads for haul trucks with payloads of 100 tons and up, according to our guest on The Dirt, Casey Zbinden, Komatsu product marketing manager.
The DG955 represents a ground-up redesign over its predecessor. It runs on a 423-horsepower Komatsu engine and uses moldboards of 18 to 20 feet long.
“That thing is massive – and impressive,” says host of The Dirt Bryan Furnace.
To learn more about this beast of a motor grader and watch it in action, check out the latest episode of The Dirt.
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In This Episode:
00:00:00:09 - 00:00:24:09
Bryan Furnace
Hi everybody. Welcome back to The Dirt. I'm your host, Bryan. And today we're here to talk about graders. And if you like graders, we've got a massive one for you. We're here to talk about the GTX 955 seven, which is Komatsu's new mining class blade.
00:00:24:11 - 00:00:33:04
Bryan Furnace
Without further ado, here's my interview with Komatsu.
00:00:33:06 - 00:00:43:18
Bryan Furnace
Can you give us an overview? There's a lot of people out there that are a fan of the blade, but they're not familiar with one quite this big. Can you give us an overview of the GD955?
00:00:43:20 - 00:01:07:18
Casey Zbinden
Yeah, I'd love to. Yeah, it is a mining sized grader really designed for mine sites with haul trucks 100 tons and up. It's a great support machine for those haul roads, really focused on the mining side, but really to have that large grader to be not only productive, with, high blade downforce, but also be able to move that machine at speed as well.
00:01:07:19 - 00:01:15:22
Bryan Furnace
So from my understanding, you guys went for a period of time without a mining size greater, what made you guys decide to step back into that space?
00:01:16:00 - 00:01:35:09
Casey Zbinden
You're exactly right. We've been out of this size a great market for some time, but really, we do see in North America, the mining sector continuing to grow and to continue to be strong. And we believe we have a machine that our customers are really going to appreciate. That's really going to help support those mine sites.
00:01:35:11 - 00:01:46:13
Bryan Furnace
So for those who are familiar with the Komatsu graders, can you give us some; So just an overview of some of the improvements that this machine has over previous iterations of the machine.
00:01:46:15 - 00:02:07:06
Casey Zbinden
Yeah. So the key thing for us is that it's tier for final, power as a tier four final engine. So for North America, that was key for us when we, you know, reentering this market. But really it is, ground up redesigned from our previous model, which was the GD825. But mostly the focus is for production.
00:02:07:06 - 00:02:34:23
Casey Zbinden
So we have a longer wheelbase and a heavier machine to support that blade downforce. So getting great blade penetration in our pack, but also we have an eight-speed transmission. So we're very excited to have additional horsepower from the engine and this eight speed transmission to be able to move this machine and really be productive, again, not just pushing down with the blades, but also, running up and down those whole roads.
00:02:35:00 - 00:02:38:05
Bryan Furnace
And just out of curiosity, what's the horsepower rating on this beast?
00:02:38:10 - 00:02:41:14
Casey Zbinden
That's 423 horsepower. Is this machine?
00:02:41:16 - 00:02:44:07
Bryan Furnace
Wow. I think it's a monster. And how big is the mold board?
00:02:44:08 - 00:02:48:12
Casey Zbinden
We have an 18ft blade, and we also have a 20ft blade option as well.
00:02:48:16 - 00:03:07:07
Bryan Furnace
Wow. Wow. So, out of curiosity, I'm assuming for the minds you don't necessarily need it, but are there any plans on incorporating machine control, be it either 2D or 3D on the machine?
00:03:42:14 - 00:04:06:03
Casey Zbinden
Yeah, that's a great question. So we have heard, comments from our customers specifically on a 2D cross flow option, you know, especially from the operators, you know, maintaining these hollow roads, wanting to add, you know, some type of, grade to those for drainage. And that is something that we are looking into. And currently we don't have anything on the horizon for 3D.
00:04:06:05 - 00:04:18:17
Casey Zbinden
I think on this size machine specifically, we have it tailored for our operators, but it's really an opportunity as well to let our operators, shine and use their talents as well. With our greater operation.
00:04:18:19 - 00:04:36:20
Bryan Furnace
Yeah, it makes sense that those guys would want the 2D, like you said, cross slope option because it is a lot of haul roaming, maintaining. But it also occurs to me that in a mining application, there's probably not enough changes to things in a way that you're going to have a bunch of site plans programed into this thing.
00:04:36:20 - 00:04:39:06
Bryan Furnace
That 3D would make a whole lot of sense.
00:04:39:07 - 00:04:55:10
Casey Zbinden
Yeah, you're exactly right. And a lot of the focus too is still on these sites is using, you know, large, dozers to go in and do a lot of the transitions and then the grader again, its main job is just maintaining those haul rows, trying to reduce wear on those trucks.
00:04:55:12 - 00:05:03:08
Bryan Furnace
Yeah. Gotcha. So my final question for you is with this massive of an engine, what sort of after treatment system is this thing equipped with?
00:05:03:13 - 00:05:26:02
Casey Zbinden
So this is a 15-liter engine. We use this engine on quite a few different pieces of commodity machinery. We are using a DPF diesel particulate filter and our SCR selective catalyst reduction solution. So this machine does use death generally as a rule or a guideline. We say that we use two tanks of fuel for one tank of death.
00:05:26:02 - 00:05:31:11
Casey Zbinden
So our death consumption is relatively low in this machine. But this machine does use death.
00:05:31:13 - 00:05:47:14
Bryan Furnace
Yeah. Unfortunate. We live in the world now where you're you're going to have to just deal with the after treatment and it's, you know, it's really are you getting DPF or you or SCR. Are you getting both. And and we've just come to deal with it in the industry. We're all having to accept it.
00:05:47:16 - 00:05:58:22
Casey Zbinden
Yeah. And the good news is, you know, with tier four or final, tier four final engines have been out for a period of time, and we are seeing very good reliability out of our after-treatment solutions.
00:05:58:22 - 00:06:20:03
Bryan Furnace
So yeah, that has been one of the most striking things about equipment over the last probably I would say even 3 to 4 years is it does seem like the OEMs have really started to dial in these after treatment systems so that, you know, we in the industry still kneejerk whenever we hear about the after-treatment system. But really, you aren't seeing the issues that you were in the beginning when these things were were still pretty new.
00:06:20:08 - 00:06:25:11
Bryan Furnace
Well, Casey, thank you so much again for being on the show and taking the time to go over the blade with us. I appreciate it.
00:06:25:13 - 00:06:27:10
Casey Zbinden
Yeah. Thanks, Bryan. Thanks for having me.
00:06:27:15 - 00:06:37:22
Bryan Furnace
Well, thank you again for Komatsu coming on the show to talk about the GD955. The thing is massive and impressive. As always, I hope this helps you and your business catch you on the next episode of The Dirt.
