Huck Fastening Options to Meet the Design Challenges of Trailer Manufacturers
Click to download the Huck White Paper - Fastening Options to Meet the Design Challenges of Trailer Manufacturers from Star Fasteners
“The optimisation of the design of trailers for efficiency, durability and reliability is of paramount importance. Designers and manufacturers have an evolving and broadening range of engineering options and opportunities to improve their trailer designs from all points-of-view.
The chassis or sub frame of a trailer is perhaps the most important component as it provides the core structure and strength and is subjected to the highest stresses and strains. It must survive these without compromise in performance, or any effect on the structural integrity of the vehicle through many thousands of hours of operation in the most challenging environmental conditions.
Often, the most vulnerable point on a design is where there is an interface or join between components. This holds true in the trailer industry, where the method used to join the main components and structures that combine to make up the sub frame or chassis are critical. It is essential to carefully review all available options for joining the trailer chassis and various options can be benchmarked against a list of criteria before settling on the best, or best combinations of options.
Both welding and nuts and bolts have the advantage of being time proven fastening solutions for trailer applications. LockBolts, of the three joint fastening methods discussed in this whitepaper, are the least well-known.
However, as trends towards environment, health and safety as well as quicker vehicle assembly times have accelerated, so has the popularity of LockBolts. This is mainly due to their vibration proof performance and installation speed. LockBolts offer particular benefits where a modular approach to assembly is utilised, offering the performance and flexibility to fasten the core modular chassis components together with great efficiency.
There will certainly remain a place for traditional fastening methods in future trailer assemblies but as vehicles evolve, the advantages of LockBolts and other advanced fastening technologies should not be overlooked.
This paper looks at the current options for joining sub frame or chassis elements and their pros and cons. Some have been on the market for many decades and are well known and used, whereas others are less well known but offer a significant challenge to the incumbent options for trailer designs. One such technology is LockBolts, and recent evolutions in their design by Howmet Fastening Systems under the Huck brand name have resulted in improvements in performance, installation and total cost of ownership.”
By Eur Ing Andy Smith CEng FIMechE BEng (Hons) Engineering Manager, Howmet Fastening Systems
Howmet is the leader in fastener innovation, developing highly-effective and unique joining solutions.
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