The latest computer-designed semi-trailers offer some impressive fuel savings... at
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a price. But what if you just want to make a regular curtainsider that little bit more slippery?
Words: Brian Weatherley
There’s no doubt the latest generation of strange-shaped, wind-tunnel-tested, low-drag trailers come with impressive credentials. But for many hauliers they’re just a bit too radical and, more signiicantly, expensive. What’s wanted is a way of making a ‘plain-vanilla’ 4.2mhigh, 13.6m-long curtainsider cut through the air just a little more easily, thereby saving fuel, without going to extremes. CM contacted the six major players in the UK curtainsider market and asked: “What aerodynamic devices can be speciied on your standard semi going down the production line, or retroitted at a later date by either the manufacturer or an operator’s workshop?” We expected the most obvious examples to include front bulkhead mouldings, side-skirts and minimal roof modiications. We also asked for prices and projected aerodynamic/fuel improvements where available when using the kit. n