Street Sweeper

Overview

A mechanical-broom street sweeper is a slow-moving road truck that scrubs kerbs and carriageways and carries the collected grit, litter and leaves away in an onboard bin. Unlike a single-engine machine, this design splits the work across two power units: the Diesel Engine drives the wheels through the Transmission, while a second Auxiliary Engine powers all the sweeping gear so broom speed stays constant no matter how fast the truck creeps along the gutter.

The truck rides on a bolted ladder frame with a rear Drive Axle and a front Steering Axle. Because the operator works tight to the kerb on either side of the road, the Dual-Steer Cab carries dual driving positions. The whole upper section is the Sweeping Superstructure, which bolts the brooms, elevator, hopper and supporting systems onto the same frame.

How it works

Sweeping is a relay that moves debris from the road edge into the bin. Two angled Gutter Broom discs spin at the kerb line and flick material inward toward the truck centreline. The full-width Main Pickup Broom, a cylindrical bristle roller, then sweeps that windrow rearward and flicks it up onto the Debris Elevator, a slatted squeegee belt that lifts it into the Debris Hopper. When the bin is full, a hydraulic dump cylinder high-tips the hopper to empty it into a skip.

Two systems keep the pickup clean. The Water System sprays a fine mist at each broom so the brushing action does not throw a dust cloud, and an optional Suction System system uses a fan and intake nozzle to vacuum up the fine particles the brooms leave behind. Every moving function on the superstructure, broom spin, belt drive, arm lift, swing and the hopper dump, runs off the Hydraulic System, whose pump is turned by the auxiliary engine and whose valve bank lets the operator control each motor and cylinder from the cab.