Investigation of the dispersed composition of dust during excavation

The article discusses the process of dust formation during the operation of a bulldozer and pro-vides visual diagrams illustrating it. The study was performed using a high-precision microscope. Micrographs of loam samples were obtained, samples of which were taken from one of the construction sites in the summer and winter during the operation of a bulldozer and excavator. Integral curves of mass distribution over particle diameters in a probabilistic logarithmic coordinate grid of dust are constructed for the warm and cold periods of the year (July and January), respectively. When studying the dispersed composition of loam soil samples, it was found that, unlike in summer, in winter the particles “stick together” into larger particles. For the bulldozer, the share of PM10 decreased by 70 times from 7 to 0.1 %, and for the excavator by 250 times from 30 to 0.12 %. The article presents schemes for the formation of a ground drawing prism during the operation of a bulldozer. It is noted that when dragging soil, there is a circulation movement of soil in three zones of the dump (in the middle part and in its lateral parts, which is the main source of dust release during the operation of the bulldozer