l'AF loses weight
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est German axle and !nsion manufacturer SAF veloping lightweight ons of its latest airmded RS9042 nine-tonne The axle is sold in the hrough Industrial inery Supplies of hborough.
IS already stocks the )42 axle, launched at last ember's Frankfurt Show, mill shortly be starting joint evaluation trials with a UK operator using a lightweight unit equipped with narrower brake linings.
The standard RS9042 axle is specifically designed for triaxle trailers, and when fitted with SAFs AR414 air suspension weighs 1,497kg.
But by fitting longer-life and narrower 152mm asbestosfree brake linings (normal linings are 180mm wide) SAF has trimmed the weight of an air-suspended tri-axle unit down to 1,470kg.
Production versions are expected to go on sale in the UK in the summer.
SAF is also well advanced in the development of an even lighter tri-axle air-suspended trailer bogie based on the current RS9042 axle design but fitted with glass reinforced plastic trailing arm springs and aluminium fixing hangers.
A tri-axle bogie equipped with the ultra-lightweight axles offers a weight of only 1,344kg, which IMS claims is more than 100kg below the weight of a conventional inonoleaf steel sprung bogie. Such weight savings will make air suspension much more attractive says IMS.
Several months of prototype road trials with the new axle are scheduled to begin in the UK around late summer, with production units expected to arrive by mid-1987.