QUALITY GOES UP INTO ORBIT
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Not many Cargo 1313 chassis end up as part of a 2650,000 vehicle. Lanmear builds some sophisticated bodywork onto Cargos to house state-of-the-art satellite communications equipment.
• Some forms of bodybuilding are so specialised as to be thought of as almost a different business altogether. The body structure in such instances is likely to be of minimal concern to the vehicle user, overshadowed both in value and in technical complexity by what it contains.
Nevertheless, when the finished vehicle, based on say a run-of-the-mill Ford Cargo chassis, is a satellite broadcasting unit with an insured value of some £650,000, the role of the body in protecting the contents — if only from damage and/or theft — is vital, and deserves close design attention.
BROADCAST
Lanmear is a West Midlands company set up in 1988 by Chris Seddell, an electronics and satellite broadcasting entrepreneur, to produce such specialised vehicle bodywork. Siddell's main company is CPS Communications, whose business is the supply and installation of the equipment to be found inside the Lanmear-built bodies.
The Cargo 1313-based satellite broadcasting vehicle, whose finished value would give most UK transport managers sleepless nights, was just being completed when we visited Lanmear's factory — comprising two I85m2 units sited in a modern industrial development (albeit surrounded by crumbling Victorian property) at Aston in Birmingham.
Volume production is not the name of the bodybuilding game for Lanmear, which has produced just 11 mobile satellite broadcast units (MSBUs) in 18 months. The company employs only 14 people, but still applies the technology of mass-production systems. Bodywork designs are computer originated, with a full-time CAD-literate designer seated at a VDU — and no drawing board in sight.
Operational factors impose unique design constraints on MSBU bodywork, and on the complete vehicle. Although the needs of users vary (they are typically state-controlled or independent broadcasting organisations, from countries as far-flung as Japan, Portugal and Italy), there are common features.
Every vehicle carries a large dish antenna on the roof, weighing around 400kg. The body structure must withstand this load and remain rigid when the vehicle is parked at its broadcasting site — which could be almost anywhere, from the scene of a disaster to a worldclass sporting event. The antenna dish, which can be adjusted to line up with communication satellites, has to withstand formidable wind loads while its angular position must be held to within a tenth of a degree.
To provide a completely horizontal and firm base for the roof-mounted antenna, American-made hydraulic chassis stabilisers are fitted. Mounted on outriggers at the rear but inboard at the front, the stabilisers are single-acting (coil spring returned) ground-contact rams, controlled via electronic sensors. They automatically maintain the chassis in a true horizontal position, whatever the terrain.
Much greater stiffness is called for in the MSBU superstructure than in any freight-carrying body, not just to take the high roof loading (concentrated, logically, above the drive axle) but to prevent wind-load distortion.
The bodyshell's only separate support structure comprises a floor-to-roof spaceframe below the antenna, welded from aluminium box-sections. These include stout diagonal bracings which resist any tendency for the bodyshell to "lozenge" when side gusts blow on the satellite dish.
Though the body is almost entirely of aluminium, it has no intermediate frame to support the sidewalls or front bulkhead. Instead Lanmear uses interlocking plank extrusions throughout . — the 225mm-wide vertical aluminium planks give a smooth outer surface. At their interlocking edges the extrusions are 25mm thick. In the crew areas an internal lining of 5mm ply and a layer of grey cord carpet material bring the wall thickness up to 38mm. The extruded aluminium structure is electrically stable, so it does not interfere with the performance of the equipment inside.
In the interests of a smart appearance. Lanmear makes maximum use of the extrusions cut out when making doorways and hatch openings to fabricate the relevant hinged doors and hatches.
These include a 750mm-square escape hatch in the sidewall of the crew-room opposite the door. The hatch is held in a lipped rubber moulding which is similar to a vehicle windscreen surround: after its beading has been pulled away (using a red ring-pull) the whole hatch can be kicked out.
SPACEFRAME
The full-height midships spaceframe forms part of the internal racking structure supporting the mass of control boards and TV monitors which make up the heart of an MSBU.
All MSBUs have to be air-conditioned and temperature-controlled as the electronic componentry is sensitive to condensation. The ply and carpet lined operations room can be maintained at 25°C when it is 45°C outside. The two Cargo 1313-based MSBUs being built by Lanmear for British Aerospace, in its partnership with World Television News, have US-supplied Prem-I-Air air conditioning. They are also equipped with more mundane Eberspacher DBL diesel fuel-burning heaters, fed from the same 110-litre tanks mounted below the floor at the rear, which supply the MSBU's big Onan generator set.
With its auxiliaries the gen-set weighs some 500kg, and occupies a good deal of bodyspace in a heavily sound-insulated compartment directly above the rear axle.
Unusually for such a specialised bodybuilder, Lanmear has a chassis simulator jig, enabling the body to be built and equipped before its designated chassis arrives at Aston.
Delays in chassis arrival are not too surprising when they have to be shipped in from Italy or even Japan.
Among the MSBUs built by Lanmear are four each for the Italian RA! and Telespazio (BBC and BT equivalents). They were mounted on left-hand-drive (Italian-spec) Iveco 95-14 chassis on which Lanmear was asked to make various additional modifications, such as cutting kerb-view cab windows low down in the passenger doors.
Chris Siddell is open-minded about future diversification for Lanmear's vehicle-building activity.
He says the company will look at any form of specialised bodywork, though it is clear that profitability considerations would rule out projects which lacked a need for ingenuity by way of problemsolving input.
0 by Alan Bunting