The Revolution Blog

Electric Trailer Spins Through Narrow Factory Maze

Monday, Sep 28, 2015

Minus the orange flair, it looks like your typical double fifth-wheel steer trailer. But inside, it’s anything but.

An electric-powered slew drive makes the upper deck rotatable, which helps a tier-one auto supplier spin its way to huge safety and quality-control gains.

“Before our trailer, they used a fork truck to move 30,000-pound dies,” said John Yater, a Hamilton design engineer. “Trouble is, because of how the dies had to be unloaded, it forced workers to transport them sideways instead of lengthwise through extremely narrow aisles.”

This left about two inches of clearance on both sides of the truck while it journeyed from storage to the manufacturing bay.

“Two inches doesn’t leave a lot of room for error,” said Yater. “One scrape could damage the load, or cause it to fall off the truck. And the sideways orientation impedes the driver’s view, so it’s a worker safety issue, too.”

Room to breathe

With Hamilton’s trailer, workers now load the dies in the direction of the trailer for transport, which opens up more than a foot of space on both sides of the trailer.

When the trailer reaches the production facility via a tugger – which also serves as its power supply – the die rotates 90 degrees before being unloaded.

A single rotation takes roughly 2.5 minutes, with a full 360-degree turn clocking in at 10 minutes. This may seem like forever in manufacturing, but a slow and steady turn helps keep workers safe, and protects the equipment.

For added durability, our engineers spec’d and installed ball transfer units to surround the slew drive to prevent damage if the load isn’t perfectly centered.

“The ball transfer units safeguard against shock loading and stop one side of the trailer from being overloaded, which could cause the slew drive to fail,” he said. “Accidents and mishaps can occur, and we always account for that.”

While the auto supplier only recently put our trailer to work, we’re told the crew already feels much less claustrophobic.

  • All steel, double fifth-wheel steer trailer
  • Capacity: 30,000 lbs.
  • Size: 60” side by 90” long by 30” deck height
  • Structural steel frame with steel plate welded over structural steel frame
  • 60” wide by 90” long steel turntable with 6” tall by 1” thick bolt-on lip
  • Loop-type towing tongue at both ends with lock outs engaged by raising tongue
  • Running gear: eight dual-mounted, press-on polyurethane wheels with tapered roller bearings
  • Color: safety/international orange
  • Slewing drive powered by 24-volt DC electric motor

Leave a comment

Add Comment Cancel

Comments