A grafo-numeric method of determination of the operation power of the rotor of EsRc-1400 bucket wheel excavator using computer simulation in SolidWorks Florin Dumitru Popescu 1,* , Sorin Mihai Radu 1 , Andrei Andraș 1 , and Ildiko Kertész (Brînaș) 1 1 University of Petroșani. Dept. of Mechanical, Industrial and Transports Engineering, Romania Abstract. The bucket wheel excavator (BWE) is a complex continuous digging machine, used to excavate material using a layout of buckets installed on a rotor (bucket wheel), and at the same time, using the conveyor system installed on its boom, transferring this material to the main conveyor. The bucket wheel is the operating equipment, and it rotates in the vertical plane and performs (with the boom) a pivoting movement in the horizontal plane and an ascendant – descendent movement in the vertical plane. The paper presents a new grafo-numeric method of determination of the operation power of the BWE rotor, using computer simulation in SolidWorks. The aim of using virtual models for the analysis of the operation of some components of the BWE is to reduce the specific energy consumption during cutting while maintaining the installed operation power of the rotor, to increase the excavation capacity and to improve the cutting – loading system. 1 General considerations The method proposed for the determination of the operation power of the rotor has been applied to EsRc-1400 model BWE [1]. This type of excavator is used in the open pit lignite mines in Oltenia. The geometric characteristics regarding the positioning of the rotor and the rotation mechanism are presented in figure 1 where the notations used have the following meanings: • Hs – the height of the rotation axis of the boom as against the operating level of the excavator; • Lsp – the distance between the rotation axis of the boom and the rotation axis of the upper platform; • Lp – the pivot length of the boom; • Hsp – the distance between the rotation center of the rotor and the lower surface of the boom; • Br – the distance between the rotation center of the rotor and the symmetry vertical plan of the boom; * Corresponding author: fpopescu@gmail.com ,0 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf /20192 MATEC Web of Conferences 290 900 MSE 2019 400 400 7 7 © The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).