1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216 
G, BIGGER, GGES111 1
Page 57
Page 58
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Brambles Industrial Services is running what are probably the biggest road-registered trucks ever built. Steve Brooks reports from down under.
estern Australia is a place of Wextremes. It has searing temperatures, bone-dry deserts — and then there are the trucks. While UK operators such as Dick Denby and Stan Robinson have given themselves migraines banging their heads against a brick wall calling for longer and heavier vehicles, inWA the job is to simply get the freight through some of the most inhospitable terrain in the world.
Special conditions demand special trucks and Brambles Industrial Services' Kenworth C510 roadtrains undeniably exemplify the breed.
The project that spawned what local pundits insist is the biggest road-registered truck in the world started two years ago, when Brambles decided that a sizeable chunk of its on and offroad heavy-duty haulage fleet was approaching the end of its life.
The easy fleet renewal solution would have been to replace vehicles on a like-for-like basis, but times and tasks change. While Kenworth, Mack and Volvo are all well represented in the company's yards, Brambles decided a more standardised fleet, working across a broad range of severe-duty environments, offered distinct long-term advantages, even if the capital outlay was considerably greater.
If standardisation was a major plank in its fleet replacement programme so, too, was engine life. Jim Riordan,Brambles Industrial Services' eastern region director and national heavy equipment manager, willingly concedes that the company has learned valuable lessons about the importance of cubic capacity in determining and maximising engine life in the kind of extreme heavy-duty applications found in WA. Put simply, when gross weights stretch to beyond 130-tonnes the bigger the engine the better, not least when it comes to long-term reliability.
Little real choice
Yet when it came to the crunch there were few truck and engine brands around to actually meet Brambles' requirements for a truck and engine combination capable of shrugging off gross weights of up to 200-tonnes in on-road conditions and 450-tonnes in off-road roles; all with a Cummins Signature-powered trailer in support.
In truck terms it boiled down to two marques— Kenworth or Mack — with the former emerging victorious, Meanwhile, on the engine side, only Cummins' burly 19-litre QSK19 engine had the performance and longterm durability standards demanded by Brambles.
Explaining Kenworth's ousting of Mack in the 'ultimate truck contest'. Riordan doesn't pull any punches. "Right from the start Kenworth showed they were fully committed to the exereise.They could see the same big picture we were looking at and people like Kenworth's project engineer Phil Webb showed they had the attitude and flexibility to work with us on the design platform.We were after the full package and Kenworth gave it to us," Typically Aussie What Brambles got was a characteristically 'Aussie-answer' in the form of a huge 10x6 bonneted C510 twin-steer tractor with three driven axles.As it currently stands. Brambles has 20 of the 'big bangers' on order for various on-road roles, primarily in West Australian mining applications. Largely they are replacing Volvo units with Cummins engines and Swedish drivelines.
By any yardstick,Br ambles' C510 tractor is an intriguing vehicle, not least because its P. evolution has paralleled that of the 18.9-litre QSK19 engine. Indeed, Riordan concedes that Brambles new giant truck was largely designed around the ability to accommodate the lumpy dimensions and considerable cooling requirements of the big-bore Cummins.
The QSK is the descendant of the old K19 engine, which previously impressed many Aussie roadtrain operators with its reliability and long life.The K19 was low-tech hardware, having originally been designed for such industrial applications as stationary generators. By contrast,the QSK19 has been heavily reworked with the addition of full-authority electronics, plus extensive upgrades to 70% of its internals including the crankshaft, pistons and rings, liners, carnshaft,cylinder head, valves and gear-train.Vitally, the engine can now meet Australia's current emissions standard,ADR80.
For truck applications the QSK19 is limited to a "mere' 600hp at 2,100 rpm and a stump-pulling 2,644Nna of torque at 1,300rpm. While these figures are mainly to protect transmission and drive-train components, Cummins points out that the QSK is perfectly capable of handling outputs up to 760hp and an astonishing 3,085Nm.Even at its base 600hp rating Cummins insists it delivers a lusty