Grader
heavy-duty vehicles equipped with a long blade used to level and smooth surfaces
A grader, also commonly referred to as a road grader, motor grader, or simply blade, is a form of heavy equipment with a long blade used to create a flat surface during grading. Although the earliest models were towed behind horses, and later tractors, most modern graders are self-propelled and thus technically "motor graders".
Typical graders have three axles, with the steering wheels in front, followed by the grading blade or mouldboard, then a cab and engine atop tandem rear axles. Some graders also have front-wheel drives for improved performance. Some graders have optional rear attachments, such as a ripper, scarifier, or compactor. A blade forward of the front axle may also be added. For snowplowing and some dirt grading operations, a main blade extension can also be mounted.
Capacities range from a blade width of 2.5 to 7.5 m (8 to 24 ft) and engines from 95–375 kW (125–500 hp). Certain graders can operate multiple attachments, or be designed for specialized tasks like underground mining.
Function
In civil engineering "rough grading" is performed by heavy equipment such as wheel tractor-scrapers and bulldozers.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Grader” as heavy-duty vehicles equipped with a long blade used to level and smooth surfaces. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q217694. The Library of Congress control number is sh85056167. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Grader” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.