The bucket chain dredger is a continuously operating extraction machine that carries an endless chain with buckets. The buckets submerge into the extraction material, fill themselves, are conveyed upward, and automatically empty at the head of the bucket ladder onto a conveyor belt or into a bunker. Conveying capacities reach 100 to 10,000 m³/h.
In open-pit mining, bucket chain dredgers are used for removing overburden and extracting raw materials (gravel, sand, coal). In wet dredging, they operate floating on pontoons for deepening waterways and sand extraction. The machines are enormous — the largest specimens weigh over 13,000 tons and reach excavation heights of 50 meters.
Today, bucket chain dredgers have been largely displaced by hydraulic excavators and bucket wheel excavators, as these are more flexible and require less maintenance. However, in dredging operations and certain open-pit mining applications, they remain indispensable due to their continuous operation and high hourly capacity.