Unique exhibition lets visitors get close to building equipment
AN EXHIBITION featuring heavy machinery used at construction sites is being held at Miraikan (National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation) in the Odaiba area of Koto Ward, Tokyo.
The special exhibition, titled “Kojichu! Tachiiri Kinshi!? Juki no Genba” (The “Under Construction” Is It Safe to Enter!? Heavy Machinery in Use!), organised by The Yomiuri Shimbun and others, displays an array of 10 heavy machines, ranging from the nation’s first domestically built hydraulic excavator to a state-of-the-art, robot-like concept machine with two arms. Visitors can even climb aboard a couple of the machines.
Heavy machines show their abilities best at places where uncultivated land is cleared and where roads and buildings are built. The machines in the show are representative of such equipment.
These machines include a bulldozer used in such work as levelling rough land. The early 20th century saw the advent of the bulldozer in the United States. In Japan, the use of bulldozers became widespread after the end of World War II, and they served as a driving force for postwar reconstruction work, leveling Japan’s devastated land.
The exhibition also includes the country’s first domesticallybuilt hydraulic excavator, which made its appearance in 1961, three years before the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Such shovels were used in construction projects during the days of the nation’s high economic growth, such as building expressways and Shinkansen lines. In 2016, the National Museum of Nature and Science registered the machine under its “Essential Historical Materials for Science and Technology” registration system, commonly known as Mirai Technology Heritage, which is aimed at recording progress in scientific technology.
A hydraulic excavator can be used for various operations. In addition to digging into the ground with a scoop-like bucket attached to the end of its arm, it can carry out other tasks - such as grabbing and cutting - by using other attachments.
A Caterpillar Japan LLC employee in charge of the company’s part of the exhibition praised hydraulic excavators as “all-round players at construction sites.”
Demolition work on old buildings is the start of urban redevelopment and housing reconstruction. Heavy machinery plays a prominent role in that task.
Overseas, the demolition of old buildings is often carried out with explosives. But that is difficult in urban areas of Japan, where buildings are crowded close together. Instead, heavy machinery is used to smash buildings’ concrete and cut through their steel frames. The exhibits also include huge pairs of scissors that can be attached to a hydraulic excavator to chop through steel frames and iron rebar while also smashing concrete blocks to pieces. These monster scissors have an overwhelming presence: They look like a Tyrannosaurus with its jaws wide open.
The scissors have huge magnets that can separate iron scraps from other materials at a work site. This apparatus can contribute to the reuse of waste materials from work sites. Visitors to the museum can enjoy watching a video that shows how the hydraulic excavator with huge scissors works.
Another exhibit is a crane outfitted with a spidery arm that can be extended to reach a height of 8.65 metres. The crane can be folded up into a package just 69 centimetres in width. In this form, it can move through narrow spaces to be used indoors.
The exhibition also displays a pair of “visualisation” goggles. The device enables a user to see three-dimensional images of objects that are normally hidden from view, such as underground water pipes, based on their design drawings. It is another example of cutting-edge technology adapted for construction work.
What immediately catches visitors’ eyes is an unusuallooking heavy machine with two arms and four legs that resembles a robot. This futuristic machine is a result of efforts to pursue new possibilities for hydraulic excavators.
Hitachi Construction Machinery Co. built this heavy machine, showing sympathetic understanding of the wishes of young engineers at the firm who hoped to “create a robot-like heavy machine.”
Its four legs can move independently of each other and be made to stabilise its body even while standing on an inclined surface. It can also be used for such complicated movements as its right arm raising an object and its left one cutting it.
With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics drawing near, there is a lot of construction going on at various places in Tokyo. However, such construction sites are off-limits to the public, meaning that ordinary people have few opportunities to touch the heavy machines used there.
However, the ongoing exhibition allows visitors to actually touch some heavy machines. There is a section where visitors can photograph their children, for example, as they glow with delight in the driver’s seat of a small hydraulic excavator. — Yomiuri Shimbun