Preliminary design of an aluminium trailer
Request made by : Arianne Phosphate
The company Arianne Phosphate mandated a workgroup, including the Aluminium Technology Centre of the NRC as well as the CeiAl, to evaluate the lightering potential offered by aluminium in the manufacturing of a special trailer destined to transport phosphate on forest roads.
The project was accomplished thanks to the experts and operators of the heavy transport industry who evaluated different configurations of vehicles to agree on a compromise as it pertains to the geometry and the payload.
While preliminary, the designing exercise allowed getting a glimpse into the lightering of 15% of the aluminium trailer, compared to a steel trailer. Such a lightering would translate in an equivalent increase of the payload and down the road, by a reduction of required vehicles on the road to transport the annual charge.
