No Easy Mission

Designed for heavy duty operations, the 560 hp Astra HD 9 86.56 8x6 with a GVW of 60-tonnes can replace a dumper in opencast mines.

- Gianenrico Griffini

The Astra HD9 86.56 8x6 is by no means a conventional offroad truck. Premiering at the Bauma fair in Munich, Germany, which is dedicated to construction vehicles and machines, and mining equipment, the Astra HD9 86.56 is among the top models in the portfolio of the Italian truck manufacturer. The Astra brand belongs to the CNH industrial Group, and has been designed for heavy-duty missions in extreme working environments typical of the mining-extractive sector in which it can replace a rigid dumper. The opportunity to test it presented itself recently in a quarry in Northern Italy near Piacenza. Equipped with a Cursor 13 Euro 6 12.8-litre six-cylinder in-line engine that produces 560 hp at 1,900 rpm, and a peak torque of 2,500 Nm at 1,000 rpm, the Astra HD9 86.56 looks remarkable.

Retarder and engine brake to slow down safely

Like all Iveco heavy-duty (and medium-duty too) engines, the Cursor 13 Euro 6 engine uses a Hi-SCR system for pollutants after-treatment, that does not require an exhaust gas recirculation circuit (EGR). With the Hi-SCR solution there is no need of active regeneration for the diesel particulate filter (DPF), a feature that increases the energy efficiency of the engine and lowers its fuel consumption. The Cursor 13 is equipped with Iveco Super Engine Brake, which is capable of a maximum braking power of 463 kW at 1,900 rpm. The engine, which uses an electronically-controlled variable geometry turbocharger (EVGT), is coupled to a ZF Astronic 16AS 2631 TO 16-speed (plus two reverse gears) automated transmission. The transmission, controlled by an off-road software, has two operational modes, namely fully automatic or manual (sequential).