Reclaimer

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This article is about the reclaimer machine. For information on the term Reclaimer as used in Halo: Combat Evolved please see Reclaimer (Halo).

A reclaimer is a large machine used in bulk material handling applications. A reclaimer's function is to recover bulk material such as ores and cereals from a stockpile. A stacker is used to stack the material.

Reclaimers are rated in tph (tonnes per hour) for capacity and normally travel on a rail between stockpiles in the stockyard. A bucket wheel reclaimer can typically move in three directions: horizontally along the rail; vertically by "luffing" its boom and rotationally by slewing its boom. Reclaimers are generally electrically powered by means of a trailing cable.

Stackers and Reclaimers were originally manually-controlled manned machines with no remote control. Modern machines are typically fully automated with their parameters (for stacking or reclaiming) remotely set. Some older reclaimers may still be manually controlled, as reclaiming is more difficult to automate than stacking because the automatic detection of pile edges is complicated by different environmental conditions and different bulk materials.

Bucket wheel reclaimers use "bucket wheels" for removing material from the pile they are reclaiming. Scraper reclaimers use a series of scrapers on a chain to reclaim the material.