Want to see what some of the world’s biggest machines look like? Then look no further as we’ve done the hard work to bring you the top 7 largest machines combining construction and mining vehicles, particle accelerators, and a fair few more.
So without further ado, here are the world’s largest machines in no particular order.
Large Hadron Collider
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. The machine first came to the market on September 10th, 2008, and to this day remains the latest and largest addition to CERN’s accelerator complex.
The LHC consists of a 27-kilometer ring of superconducting magnets with a number of accelerating structures to boost the energy of the particles along the way.
Bertha Tunnel boring machine
Bertha was a 57.5-foot-diameter tunnel boring machine built specifically for the Washington State Department of Transportation’s Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel project in Seattle.
With its rotating cutting wheel, the tunneling machine breaks the material from the tunnel phase. The material is then transferred to the belt conveyor system in the rear of the shield via a screw conveyer while the hydraulic cylinders press the machine forward continuously.
After dropping into a pit in July 2013, it started digging the tunnel that holds the replacement for the Alaskan Way Viaduct: an elevated highway that was partly demolished after being damaged by a 2001 earthquake.
Big Bertha
Big Bertha is the name of a super-heavy howitzer machine developed by the famous armaments manufacturer Krupp in Germany on the eve of World War I.
This machine had a 42-centimeter caliber barrel, making it one of the largest artillery pieces ever fielded.
Weighing a hefty 43.5 tonnes, Big Bertha gained a strong reputation on both sides of the lines due to its impressive successes in smashing the forts at Liege.
Pioneering Spirit
This is the world’s largest vessel by gross tonnage, designed for the single-lift installation and removal of large oil and gas platforms and the installation of record-weight pipelines.
Designed by Swiss-based Allseas Group, the 382-metre and 124-metre wide vessel was built in South Korea by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering for €2.6 billion.
Allseas has committed to building an even larger version of the same design, Allseas Amazing Grace, the delivery of which is planned for 2022.
Seawise Giant – Supertanker
The Seawise Giant was a ULCC supertanker that was the longest ship ever, built by Sumitomo Heavy Industries in Yokosuka, Japan.
The tanker possessed the biggest deadweight tonnage ever recorded, with the ability to hold 657,019 tonnes. The tanker sunk during the Iran – Iraq war but was later salvaged and restored to a floating storage and offloading unit in 2004.
The vessel was later sold to Indian shipbreakers and renamed Mont for its final journey in December 2009.
After clearing India customs, it wasn’t long before it was beached for scrapping.
Crawler-transporters
The Crawler Transporters are a pair of tracked vehicles used to transport spacecraft from NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building along the Crawlerway to Launch Complex 39.
They were originally used to transport the Saturn IB and Saturn V rockets during the Apollo, Skylab and Apollo–Soyuz programs.
The two crawler-transporters were designed and built by Marion Power Shovel Company using components designed and built by Rockwell International at a cost of US$14 million each.
Upon its construction, the crawler-transporter became the largest self-powered land vehicle in the world.
TAKRAF Overburden Conveyor Bridge F60
The F60 is the series designation of five overburden conveyor bridges used in brown coal opencast mining in the Lusatian coalfields in Germany.
They were built by the former Volkseigener Betrieb TAKRAF in Lauchhammer and are the largest movable technical industrial machines in the world. As overburden conveyor bridges, they transport the overburden which lies over the coal seam.
With a length of 502 m (1,647 ft), it is described as the lying Eiffel tower making these behemoths not only the longest vehicle ever made—beating Seawise Giant—but the largest vehicle by physical dimensions ever made by mankind.
