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Emphasis on through transport
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T°quote the cost per ton mile of operating a vehicle only tells part of the transport story. The yardstick of transport economy is the cost per ton of assembling the load at the factory, depot or site, of transferring it to the road vehicle, of conveying it to its destination and of moving it to the point where it is to be reprocessed or distributed as a single load or in part loads to the user or users.
In this larger scheme, the type of body fitted to the vehicle can be of greater importance than the vehicle chassis on which it is mounted in that it gives the operator's initiative greater scope, not only with regard to the type of body employed (and equipment) but also to the benefits obtainable from close liaison with his customers or other departments of his own company. The best choice of body often therefore depends on the type of depot facilities available which nationally and internationally will continue for many years to be a complex variable.
There are many more goods bodies at the Show this year than in any previous exhibition that cater for the through transport of a load for the whole or major part of its total movement, and undoubtedly this represents a trend of the greatest importance to the economy of the country. The advantages provided in terms of vehicle size and weight by the new plating regulations and the prospect of further length and weight increases are favourably fortuitous. They give even greater scope to the bodywork and equipment designer but, without them, the trend would have equal importance.
While undoubtedly the container offers a greater overall potential for the through transport of materials and goods than any other type of body—notably because container traffic is rapidly developing on a worldwide basis—the scale on which external handling aids have to be organized and diversified are, in a typical case, such that detailed information of typical facilities and so on can only be obtained from a number of sources involving possibly an equal number of concerns. Normally container manufacturers are understandably unaware of all the movements in which a container will be engaged after it leaves the factory.
On the other hand, a balker equipped with a power-operated discharge mechanism is generally employed to transport the material from the bulk storage supply point to the user's storage container, and the technical details of the bodywork tell a story that has beginning, a middle and an end in defined stages. ml also applies with different yardsticks of worth to liquid tankers, bi the bulker is more of a developing entity and the ultimate growth c bulk transport is subject to a larger number of extraneous factor: Whereas interest in ISO containers, as can be seen at Earl Court, centres on methods of construction and in many cases on th type of insulation and refrigerating equipment employed (in comma with a variety of van bodies) the most important aspect of a bul transport vehicle relates to details of the discharge system and ofte concerns the relative merits of tipping and non-tipping bulkers.
Leading makers of ISO containers exhibiting at the Show includ Bonallack, Duramin, Mickleover, Highway Trailers, Craves Homalloy, York and Rollalong, while the Murfitt company con] into the scene in an important way by virtue of their containel transfer system designed for standard ISO containers covering range of lengths of 10 ft. to 40 ft. Although in a different categor! the demountable waste-material containers displayed by Powe Duffryn, Telehoist, Sheppard Fabrications and Reynolds Boughto are of allied interest, and this also applies to the Kewtainer demon: able container shown by the Cocker company, the Rollalong lif off system and a variety of container bodies, such as the Arlingtoi designed to lift off when unladen by the jacking method to cater ft seasonal traffic.
Variations over the coming years in the methods of fabricatin containers promise to be of special interest in that they may st standards that will be followed by bodybuilders on a Wider scab Othough composite aluminium-and-steel construction is generally avoured, the plastics sandwich type of container is only a close lead behind and steel-based structures may well come into their own 3 due course.
Having standard overall dimensions of 19 ft. 10+ in. by 8 ft. by 1 ft., the BonaBack ISO freight container is framed in mild steel ections combined with light-alloy members, the front and rear mildteel frames having cast-steel corners which are welded into the rame to form a unit, deep headrails providing transverse walkways. rhe side panels of the container are constructed of 14 s.w.g. lightilloy sheet having deep-drawn vertical swages at 12 in. centres, the :heet being solid-rivetted to the framework. The roof is a one-piece nember of light alloy supported on aluminium roof ribs at 18 in. :entres and is also solid-riveted to the framework. Slots can be rovided for lifting by callipers when the container is carried on a iner-train service and tunnels can be incorporated for lifting by forkift truck.
In common with all the containers produced by Boden Trailers, a 10 ft. ISO steel-and-aluminium unit, shown by this company. is suitable for stacking six-high. The container incorporates steel corner pillars or hollow section which are used in conjunction with light-alloy sill and cant sections. The bottom rails and the front and rear headers are also of steel, and this also applies to the top-hat intermediate pillars of the bulkhead, the intermediate side pillars being of aluminium top-hat section. Z-section roof sticks support a one-piece alloy roof whilst I-section aluminium floor bearers are spaced at 12 in. centres and support a plywood floor. The hinged doors are of special interest in that they comprise a sandwich having a galvanized-steel inner section and aluminium-alloy outer skins.
The York 20 ft. ISO container features "solid-block" construction based on multiple portal frames (and is designed for stacking six-high) and the specification of the Rollalong container of this type includes end frames of square-section steel tube and floor joists, side frames and roof frames of aluminium. Built in this country by the Cravens Homalloy company, the American Strick alloy-and-steel container is designed to be equipped with running gear and legs for use as a frameless semi-trailer.
While the Duramin general-purpose 20 ft. ISO freight container is a light alloy-and-steel unit (the tare weight of which is 1 ton 16 cwt.) it is significant that the company have entered the field of frameless plastics-sandwich construction of insulated bodywork and that they exhibit a 20 ft. ISO container of this type at the Show. This has an insulating core of foamed polyurethane produced by a patented process in slab form which has a K factor of better than 0.15 and is bonded to panels of glass fibre. The production process is described as an extension of the vacuum-impregnation method, coupled to a system of irrigation that allows the resin to flow evenly to all parts of the panel. Detailed features of the Show container include a second deck, comprising runner-mounted sections, and a dry-ice refrigerating system.
The Duramin frameless container may Appropriately be compared with the ISO insulated unit produced by one of the pioneers of plastics construction, the Mickleover company, whose container is also built with a core of rigid foam, and in the example shown is temperature-controlled by a Mickleover solid-carbon-dioxide system fitted in the roof, which is rechargeable from the front of the body. Fittings include meat rails suspended from the roof and removable shelves. Although the Litewate insulated plastics containers shown by Thompson Bros. have to date been only employed for the transport of consumable spirits, they are adaptable to the carriage of any "high-grade" liquid including chemicals. Available in four capacities of 500 gal. to 650 gal. they are of moulded-sandwich construction with a freon-blown polyurethane-foam core and a colour impregnated polyester-resin outer casing, the inner lining in the case of spirit containers being of stainless steel. Lifting ring attachments and base recesses cater respectively for hoist and fork-lift truck loading.
Claimed to represent a completely new type of plastics sandwich construction, a Cravens Homalloy insulated body has a polyurethane core and reinforced glass-fibre skins, and details include beam-section cross-bearers which provide for the rubber-based shock-resilient mountings on which the container is supported.
Other plastics bodies on view include a Marsden pantechnicon, a Bowyer Bros. boxvan and a Charrold platform vehicle. At the 1964 Show a section of a filament-wound plastics tank was exhibited by the Gloster Saro company and this year they display a 5,300 gal. articulated tanker; eight tankers of this type are now in service.
In contrast to the Duramin and Mickleover plastics containers and to a lesser extent to the composite types mentioned, features of the 20 ft. ISO container shown by Highway Trailers include corrugated sides of Corten high-yield stress steel. The front end is reinforced with top-hat section stakes of this material which are contained within the corrugations and provide resistance to shockloading. The rear doors are of aluminium-and-plywood laminate construction and are equipped with cam-action locks and heavyduty neoprene seals. While the fork lift pockets, leg pockets and straddle-lift fittings are designed to meet the requirements of Europol they may be modified to comply with a particular specification. The container is lined with 0.25 in. plywood and the sides and front are fitted with a 1 ft. wide 18 g. steel wearing plate. Sockets at the corners of the container provide for the use of four demounting legs. Most of the van and container bodies on display are of lightalloy construction and there is a variety of aluminium tipping bodies. It is generally agreed that plating will foster the use of aluminium structures provided that the weight regulations are enforced on a nationwide scale.
Also representing an important development in Continental export traffic, TIR bodies are displayed on a number of stands, and in the case of Dyson the company exhibits two bodies of this type, the one in the demonstration park featuring a tilt that is traversed telescopically by a cable mechanism operated by a front mounted winch. The body on the indoor stand takes the form of a 20 ft. lift-off steel unit of 20 tons gross capacity equipped with a demountable superstructure which incorporates a second deck comprising easily removable and interchangeable sections. Each section is built of timberboard with steel tongues which are mounted on interlocking metal frames. A tubular framework supports the superstructure, and details include timber slats and a p.v.c.impregnated nylon tilt secured by a plastics-covered wire rope. The unit base frame incorporates fork lift tunnels and telescopic lifting bars.
On the same theme, the Marston company shows a special TIR 33 ft. body mounted on a 28/30 ton g.t.w. tandem axle semi-trailer, special features of the structure including adjustable roof trusses that provide for a height extension from 7 ft. 6 in. to 8 ft. 6 in. The trusses are fitted with sockets to accommodate detachable mildsteel tubular rails that give additional support to the tilt roof.
Reverting to containers, this time of the self-demountable wastematerial type, Sheppard Fabrications displays the Rolonof handling unit, introduced a few weeks ago, which has a maximum capacity including the weight of the container of 11 tons when fitted to a 16-ton g.v.w. chassis and is capable of accommodating 20 Cu. yd. of material. The container is of the closed type and has six loading doors on each side, the contents being discharged by tipping through a top-hinged tailgate.
The tipping frame is elevated by two high-pressure double-acting rams and is fitted with an hydraulically actuated heavy-duty winch which operates under power in both directions of rotation. This is employed to winch the container on to the frame and to lower it to ground level, the rear of the container mounting frame being equipped with rollers to provide for movement during demounting relative to the tipping frame. By virtue of the lifting mechanisms being located at frame level, a container can readily be carried having a width equal to that of the vehicle.
On the Powell Duffryn stand a film is being shown of the company's Dumpster, Dinosaur and Dumpmaster systems in operation and examples of these systems are exhibited on the stand. Of particular note, a Dumpmaster is displayed by the ERF company on a six-wheeled chassis which features a body of the load-compacting type having a capacity of 24 cu. yd. The Load Lugger demountable waste-material vehicle on the Telehoist stand is displayed with a welded-aluminium skip, which affords a weight saving of 10 cwt. compared with a conventional steel type. A welded-aluminium tipper body is also shown by this company which is of the type first exhibited at the 1964 Show, and Telehoistreportthat aluminium construction is becoming increasingly popular with tipper operators.
Although designed for the transfer of containers to and from rail wagons in mind, the Murfitt semi-trailer-mounted container-transfer system will appeal to a number of operators because it can also be employed for road-vehicle-to-road-vehicle and road-vehicle-toloading-deck transfers, and if necessary the vehicle can be used on a shuttle service. Equipped with a built-in power pack, the vehicle can be levelled hydraulically to accommodate a fairly wide variation of platform height, and the container can be loaded sideways on to the frame (or unloaded) in a few minutes. The platform of the semitrailer is 30 ft. long and 8 ft. wide and the containers are transferred to the unit by four transverse sliding members arranged at 7 ft. intervals which are operated by an hydraulic motor through the medium of a drum-and-cable mechanism.
In a pneumatic-discharge type of vehicle the prevention of material bridging and degradation is the main problem in the design of the discharge equipment and is an all-important factor in the range of materials that can be handled by the vehicle. A notable feature of the new Charrold Tippermatic tipping vehicle is the use of a vibrating plate in the discharge hopper of the rotary seal system which is operated by a small hydraulic motor at a very high frequency and is, in fact, a very simple piece of equipment. It is, for example, less complex and less costly to produce than a vibrating-platform low-frequency type of feed mechanism, but as recently demonstrated it effectively eliminates bridging of the material at any point in the hopper. This system also has the merit that the material is fed to the rear of the rotary seal-intake across its full width so that there is very little chance that the material will be crushed between the blades of the seal and the casing on the outlet side. The system will conveniently handle material with a pellet size up to 1 in. square and, at the other end of the scale, all types of powder.
For handling powders, however, a pressure-discharge nontipping type of system is generally preferred, and the increasing applicability of this type is notably exemplified by two new systems exhibited at the Show, namely the Butterfield semi-trailer-based King system and the Atkinson's of Clitheroe Hydroject. Whereas the materials that the Butterfield unit is claimed to handle include cement, grain, sugar, meals, flour, food products, chemicals fertilizers, cattle feeds and cosmetics, the Atkinson's tanker is designed for the discharge of powders varying in density from 30 lbJcu. ft. to 90 lb./cu. ft.
Each of the three hoppers of the three-compartment Butterfield tanker (also available in twoand four-hopper form) is equipped with an aeration cone designed to give the air a swirling action that eliminates bridging of the material without degradation in addition to promoting discharge, the normal maximum unloading pressure varying between 10 p.s.i. and 15 p.s.i. according to the material. A streamline flow is maintained by a 5 in. wafer type butterfly valve in the cone outlet, the air-control valve being of the ball type. Air is supplied to the tanker and hoppers by a diesel-engined blower which provides for outputs up to 41 h.p., an output of this order being required for the handling of sand. The discharge equipment can be operated by one man, and a 100 per cent clean-out is claimed. A four-hopper tanker has a capacity of 1,300 Cu. ft.
An inflatable membrane is a special feature of the Atkinson's tanker and according to company technicians represents a completely new concept. The membrane extends the entire length of the base of the shell and inflation ensures that no residue material is left in the tank by virtue of the level falling to the angle of repose. The material is deposited on to a full-length air slide and is discharged from a central point, the normal operating pressure being