The comfy cab and much more
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• In the ETMC workshop session on cab comfort and safety, Kris Cuypers presented a new three-drawbar vehicle project called 4-1, which has been designed to carry three 20 TEU containers within an overall vehicle length of 21m. Each of the three drawbar trailers has its own on-board engine and the cab features maximum driver space and low noise levels because of the unusual multi-engine configuration.
German operator Meyer Klos from Mannheim said that the cab design essentials of the future will be better heating, air conditioning, sleeping, cooking and entertainment facilities. Where these are not standard at present, said Klos, they should be made so as soon as possible.
Bernard Giroud, the secretary of the French drivers union UICR, argued with Roger Lefevre of the Ministry of Transport in Brussels about the conflicting interests of road safety, driver comfort and running trucks for profit.
A session on tyres revealed that TiP gets an average of 8,000km per millimetre of tyre tread, and a workshop session on the lighter, lower vehicle revealed that fitting forged aluminium Alcoa wheels instead of normal steel wheels gives operators an extra 20kg load capacity. Apparently, that represents 12 chickens per wheel for one Alcoa customer!
Jim Smith of Bass, who chaired the lighter lower vehicle session, told the conference that only a small amount of progress has been made in this area in the past year. Carbon fibre propshafts are being tested, said Smith, "but we have had very little interest from the truck manufacturers". Bass now has a vehicle with an all-aluminium trailer on trial, he said, and "we have reduced the overall body weight by 420kg. That is an awful lot of extra beer."
Following a cal] at last year's confer ence for a 444mm aluminium wheel, Alcoa announced that a prototype has been developed using a 215/75 tyre which will be out on roadtest within the next three months — but the company warned operators at the conference that aluminium wheels can impair track and stability performances if used as singles on tippers.
Mobil Oil told the lower, lighter vehicle session that every extra kilogramme of payload achieved through such projects is worth £3.99p a year to them and that they are prepared to pay such an amount.
During a talk on spray suppression, Philip Chorlton of Monsanto said that "we now have a problem situation in the UK where the effectiveness of spray suppression devices is being diluted by older tractors not fitted with spray suppression devices, pulling trailers which are. "Drive axles on the tractor unit create most of the spray in the first place," said Chorlton, and they "produce a dense spray cloud covering most of the trailer length". He thought that the EEC proposals to take the suppression flap up to an angle of 45° from the centre of the axle to the horizontal tangent at the top of the tyre is a more effective solution to the problem.