Spreader (mining)

Spreaders in mining are heavy equipment used in surface mining and mechanical engineering/civil engineering. The primary function of a spreader is to act as a continuous spreading machine in large-scale open pit mining operations.
Bucket-wheel excavators, BWEs, are used for continuous overburden removal in surface mining applications. They use their cutting wheels to strip away a section of earth (the working block) dictated by the size of the excavator. 
The overburden is then delivered to the discharge boom, which transfers the cut earth to another machine for transfer it to the central collection area where the material will be sorted. Then the remains of the overburden will be transported to the spreader which then scatters the overburden at the dumping ground.
The purpose of the spreader is to receive overburden from the haulage conveyor from the sorting area and dump it in an orderly and efficient manner.