Collaboration Wins the Day!

For years we have been talking internally about wanting to build a better mousetrap for a 13 axle perimeter deck trailer. Between trailers in our fleet and available trailers on the market we noticed there were several areas for improvement:

1. Ability to quickly widen the trailer to accommodate for different width loads while reducing the amount of crew and equipment required for this task and associated fall off loads of extra trailer parts.
2. Ability to accommodate offset center of gravity on loads without having to widen the trailer.
3. Ability to carry loads as low as 4" off the ground.
4. Accomplish all of the above and increase net carrying capacity.

Off to the races we went and we could not be happier with the results. Step #1 was to find a partner that was interested in collaborating with our engineering and operations team. We considered self performing the fabrication but have had really good results in the past working with the folks at K-Line Trailers Ltd. After 2 months of design we let them loose. 6 weeks later the results were in and we couldn't be happier.

Challenge #1-This started with creating vertical pin joints on our necks and headers. Once this was accomplished the team designed (2) aluminum cross-braces with built in double acting hydraulic cylinders that allow the trailer to widen and narrow to accommodate loads from 9' 6"- 20' 0" between the rails without swapping our or adding any extensions to these cross braces.

Once this was accomplished we needed to work our way down the necks and come up with a simple way to handle the torsional loading inherent with an expanding beam set. We accomplished this by building formed waffle plates out of aluminum that bolted between the necks. (2) guys and a cordless impact and you are off to the races!

To finish off this challenge we needed to answer the age old question cross members and carriers, carriers only, expanding cross members and carriers or fixed. After much review and back and forth between the team we settled on fixed cross members. Our main reasoning behind this was simplicity as well as weight. We designed a simple set of carriers for unladen trailer that could be transported with the trailer and/or in one of our support vehicles. We then came up with a carrier for laden travel. I know what everyone is going to say and believe me we went back and forth on this, but after we reviewed our loads we moved over the years we really only needed to build about 3 sets of carriers.

Challenge #2-Accomodate offset center of gravity. In the past we have always just widened our trailer out and offset the piece in the trailer to keep CG centered on centerline of trailer. This unfortunately increases your overall width and associated costs and complexity of transport. The team came up with a header beam design that allows us to shift our header 12" in either direction to compensate for offset CG.

Challenge #3-Provide a 4" load height. So we got really close with this one our carriers after being mounted on rails ended up at 4.5". Regardless this was a nice increase from our typical 8" carrier. Also, it says a lot about a trailer OEM that is willing to put your logo next to theirs for this joint build!

Challenge #4-Increase net carrying capacity. When it was all said and done we increased our net carrying capacity by approx. 10%. This was a first for us in incorporating aluminum into a trailer build. Also we decided to make this a purpose built trailer as opposed to one size fits all. This allowed us to reduce weight on our deck rails significantly. Finally I think by sticking with fixed cross members we shaved some weight as well.

Overall this project turned out really well. The main driver was getting a bunch of great minds from both inside and outside the business together to collaborate. I would highly recommend to everyone out there when you find a good quality partner that will work with you and your team to stick with them. As always there are a few things that we are already talking about that we would do differently so maybe this time next year we will share version 2.0 with yah ;)