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Mid-America Trucking Show coverage: Newest trailer designs exhibited at MATS

May 1, 2013
MAC Liquid Tank Trailers of Kent, Ohio, is a new company under the umbrella of MAC Trailer of Alliance, Ohio. It introduced a brand new petroleum trailer

MAC Liquid Tank Trailers of Kent, Ohio, is a new company under the umbrella of MAC Trailer of Alliance, Ohio. It introduced a brand new petroleum trailer at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Ky.

MACLTT is building water tank trailers, crude oil trailers, vacuum trailers, and stainless steel chemical trailers at its 125,000-sq-ft plant in Kent, Ohio. It recently added the Billings, Montana, plant formerly owned by Beall Corp of Portland, Oregon.

Design of the new petroleum tanker focused on lowering the center of gravity for safety concerns, says Jim Maiorana, president of MACLTT. It starts with a low tractor fifthwheel height of 46 inches and a wide wheel-track of 83½" on single tires with air disc brakes. A Revolver rotating upper coupler is inserted into the trailer frame.

The DOT406 barrel is elliptical and has a double-taper design with a drop of 11 inches for better flow It has quarter-inch bulkheads. The three interior compartments are baffled and double-bulkheaded. Compartment sizes are 4,450 gallons, 1,400, and 3,850 gallons. The 9,700-gallon aluminum trailer has a tare weight of 9,200 lb. It is standard bottom-loaded, but has three 16" manholes at top. The ladder is on the front bulkhead.

The tank is mounted on Hendrickson AANT-230 axles with air disc brakes. The aluminum landing stiff legs are made in the MACLTT plant. Aluminum fenders are by Pro-Tec

Pictured with the brightly painted show trailer at right foreground are Ed Mansell, vice-president of MAC Liquid Tank Trailers and Jim Maiorana , president. Seated at left are some of the workers at the Kent and Billings plants who attended the Mid-America Trucking Show. ([email protected])
 

MAC Trailer of Alliance, Ohio, designed a new futuristic concept for one of its dry bulk “PneuMACtic” trailers. Its new curved shape brought lots of comment at the Mid-America Trucking Show. Some thought it was shaped like a football for better aerodynamics. Others called it a humped-back hauler. Visitors from the South thought it looked like an armadillo.

The top of the four-hopper-cone trailer is curved upward instead of having the usual straight backbone. The top frame consists of aluminum channels welded to the top sheet of each hopper to form a tube. Like other MAC pneumatic dry bulkers, the framing and struts at the front and rear are all enclosed, enhancing it aerodynamic image.

The goal is fuel savings. The food-grade all-aluminum trailer has a volume of 1,625 cubic feet, designed for one bar (14.7 psi) pressure, and weighs 9,600 lb. (www.mactrailer.com)
 

A new structural panel for van trailers was introduced by Hyundai Translead. Instead of a composite core inside the panel sandwich, the EcoCell has an embossed panel of the same galvanized steel as the skin sheets. The environmental advantage is that the entire sidewall panel can be recycled without having to separate the metal from a composite core.

The 53-ft EcoCell van trailer shown at Mid-America has panels with exterior and interior skins of .016-inch thick galvanized steel and a core of .012-inch thick galvanized steel that is embossed. Weight of the show trailer is 13,100 lb.

Chris Lee, VP-engineering at Hyundai Translead, shows samples of the embossed panel core and the finished panel. He says the 53-ft Eco Cell trailer is about 400 lb lighter than a comparable trailer with composite core panels, and the panels are also stronger. (www.translead.com)
 

A new roof liner to protect roofbows from loading damage extends all the way to the upper rail. In fact, it is easily added while the roof is in the assembly fixture by inserting the aluminum sheet into slots in the upper rail while the roof bows are bent.

Charles Mudd, president of Vanguard National Trailer Corp (at left), points out that future production might use composite sheet similar to that used on the sidewalls. However, this first prototype was built with an aluminum roof liner. At far right is another innovation, the Modulasi floor tiedown and load blocker. (www.vanguardtrailer.com)
 

The Modulasi floor tiedown and load blocker was developed by Vanguard National's parent CIMC, and specifically Burg Silvergreen in Germany. It consists of a movable tiedown that slides in a metal track in the floor. By turning a hand-screw, it can be clamped to the track at the appropriate location, where it can block pallets from sliding or serve as an anchor point for various tiedown equipment. (www.vanguardtrailer.com)
A continuous rubber belt conveyor to carry loads to the rear of the trailer is new, because most other conveyor belts are not continuous. The others use a segmented belt riding on a roller chain.

The Trail King continuous belt Super-Hi-Lite agricultural trailer is designed to haul all kinds of feed, seed, and fertilizer on the farm, as well as some more odorous products in urban areas. Therefore, prevention of spillage is important, as is cross contamination.

The Trail King belt has a special flange on both of its outside edges that fits snugly under the sidewall flashing to help prevent product leakage. A spring-loaded belt scraper at the rear cleans off sticky products.

The continuous belt conveyor is 48 inches wide. The curved aluminum sidewalls are covered with high molecular weight (HMW) plastic to prevent load sticking. The top-hinged tailgate sweeps the hopper walls for almost 12 inches to secure a tight seal.

The 43-ft long trailer has a 63-cubic-yard load capacity. Weight is 13,800 lb.(www.trailking.com)
 

The Clement ADW is an aluminum double wall using hollow core extrusions to build a “Uni-beam” sidewall for its dump body. The vertical extrusions are welded inside and out and secured with a top rail 9" deep. Slope-channel crossmembers provide floor support every 8 inches.

Clement builds many trailers for the market in the Southwest, where frameless dump trailers are very popular. However, this ADW dump trailer at the Mid-America Trucking Show was mounted on a full aluminum frame with three axles. It was designed for the upper Midwest — Minnesota, and Michigan. The third axle allows a five-ft shorter dump trailer to meet the 80,000-lb bridge law, This 34-ft long full-frame dump trailer on three axles with full interior liner and two-speed landing gear scaled 13,240 lb.. The base model without the options has a tare weight of 11,309 lb. (www.clementind.com).
 

For wide loads up to 13 feet, MANAC now offers pull-out aluminum extensions on their detachable gooseneck lowbeds. The pull-outs extend outboard wider than the usual swing-out brackets. The 27" pull-outs have stops for 10, 11, 12, and 13 feet wide. The six pullouts on each side of the main deck each have a load capacity of 16,000 lb per pull-out. MANAC, headquartered in Quebec Canada, also had two plants in Missouri and sells throughout the USA. (www.manac.us)
XL Specialized Trailers featured its XL 110 low-profile hydraulic detachable gooseneck with a number of new standard features. The 13-ft gooseneck has a five-position variable ride height and extra reinforcement of its front ramp upper flange for better support. The 26-ft long main deck is more versatile with 13 chain slots per side and 7 bent D-rings on each side. Heavy-duty removable swing-out outriggers accommodate wide loads. The third axle has air lift. Overall capacity is 110,000 lb, and the concentrated load capacity is 100,000 lb in ten feet. This XL 110 is one of four trailers exhibited by XL Specialized at the Mid-America Trucking Show---two lowbeds and two extendable trailers. (www.xlspecializedtrailer.com)
About the Author

Paul Schenck | Senior Editor