The flat-bottomed 35m³ body resembles a rigid-truck bin.

Bell Equipment’s B60E has attracted huge interest from the international earth moving, quarrying and mining segments.

“We are certainly benefiting from the move to larger capacities,” says Bell product marketing manager: ADTs, Tristan du Pisanie.

He says international experts have acknowledged that the sixty tonner is a sophisticated solution for the specific hauling problems found in traditional rigid 4×2-truck operations.

The rear chassis is a completely new design and incorporates all practical experiences and analytical data gathered in the extensive four-year test programme with B60D prototypes and production machines working in actual quarry and mining operations in South Africa. Now featuring a suspended 70-ton rear axle with 24.00 R35 twin tyres, the nominal payload is rated at 55 metric tonnes. Far larger than a conventional ADT bin, the flat-bottomed 35m³ body resembles a rigid-truck bin in its dimensions and geometry, which makes it fully compatible with existing loading equipment in mines and quarries and assures an ideal 2:1-heap of coarse blasted material.

“We designed the Bell B60E to be able to run alongside rigid trucks within the 60- to 80-ton class, so under normal conditions of dry and well maintained haul roads we do provide an alternative,” explains Du Pisanie. “But the B60E concept is ideally targeted for mines, quarries and bulk earthworks that experience conditions that rigid dump trucks cannot safely cope with, such as rainy periods which compromise underfoot conditions. When traditional 4×2 rigids can no longer operate, the superior 4×4-traction, oscillation tube and retardation characteristics of the Bell B60E pay off by keeping production going. As a quick example, if you have a rigid truck fleet that needs to park-up for one day a week, or 50 days a year, then the same size fleet of B60s would immediately provide an additional 20% productivity.

This is on top of all the other savings attributable to lower running costs. These scenarios are not uncommon and a lot of customers see this opportunity.” "Having produced higher capacity trucks since 2002, we have clearly identified that at a particular payload, and productivity requirement, the need for a vehicle to have extreme off-road ability is unnecessary. The added vehicle complexity, additional tyre scuffing and difficulty in loading a long narrow bin actually will act against the productivity and overall cost of ownership, and thus cost per tonne of material moved.

This has led to us opting for a configuration that targets and perfectly fulfils a demonstrated need out in the market. There is no doubt that the B60E will not have the extreme off-road ability of a regular Bell 6×6 truck. However, operations have to carefully analyse whether a 60-ton production application ever really requires this. Generally when this level of productivity is required some road and haul route maintenance is already present. From our experience in larger scale projects it is clear that the 4×4 concept with articulation and oscillat ion provides the level of off-road ability required to meet all conditions. Additionally it will provide the flexibility customers need to operate through a number of different phases from start up, to overburden stripping, ore production and eventual rehabilitation.”

At bauma 2016 in Munich, the company had great interest in the B60E from a number of potential buyers from many markets, says Du Pisanie. “For this reason this particular truck is booked for site demonstrations, starting in the UK, and then going overseas for its introduction to the North American market. In the meantime we continue to build D-series models for our customers in markets with lower tier ratings.”