Liebherr excavators: accelerated testing and fatigue insights for designers
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell
First reported on The Construction Index
30 Second Briefing
Liebherr France has invested €2.5m in a new accelerated test rig at its Colmar plant that can simulate crawler excavator working stresses at 17 times normal operating speed. The system subjects complete uppercarriage and undercarriage assemblies to cyclic loading to compress multi‑year fatigue, wear and structural integrity assessments into weeks rather than months. Data from the rig are also being used to develop and validate autonomous operation tools, including control algorithms and sensor packages, under repeatable high‑load duty cycles.
Technical Brief
- Test bench applies combined slew, boom, stick and travel loads to reproduce complex duty cycles.
- Hydraulic actuators are servo‑controlled, enabling precise replication of field load spectra from instrumented machines.
- Load cases include asymmetric digging, side‑loading and shock events, targeting welds, slew ring and undercarriage interfaces.
- Structural health is monitored via strain gauges and displacement sensors at critical fatigue hot spots.
- Safety systems include interlocked guarding and remote operation to keep personnel outside the hazard envelope.
- Data from controlled overload and misuse scenarios support validation of safety‑related control functions and limiters.
- Similar accelerated rigs could shorten conformity assessment for machinery safety directives and ISO/EN fatigue requirements.
Our Take
A 17-times acceleration in simulated working stresses at the Colmar production site effectively compresses multi-year duty cycles into weeks, which can shorten design feedback loops and help Liebherr France catch structural or fatigue issues before they reach high-utilisation mining and earthmoving fleets.
For operators, OEMs that publicise quantified test-speed multipliers and specific capex figures, as Liebherr France has done with the €2.5 million rig at Colmar, typically gain stronger leverage in total cost of ownership discussions, especially where safety performance is a formal tender criterion.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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