Bucket wheel excavators, spreaders, reclaimers etc. are a group of heavy machines commonly used in the mining, power and bulk-handling industry. As machines of this type are used worldwide in various operational conditions, different design and testing approaches were developed. The paper presents and compares the theoretical assumptions stated in most common standards (DIN, AS, ISO, BG…) as well in the technical and scientific literature. Moreover, the paper presents real life application giving this way the opportunity for reliable assessment of the obtained results over the normative theoretical assumptions.