The cheerful and spotless appearance of this combination doesn’t quite reflect what it’s hauling. Liquid manure, mainly. Of course any other form of liquids that go way beyond dishwater can be transported in its big tank, like wastewater and sludge.
The tractor is a Scania R 450 4×2 with a 9 tons heavy-duty front axle. Underneath its cab a 12.7 liter inline-6 with a maximum power output of 450 DIN-hp.
The Scania tows a Vogelzang semi-trailer with a Kuipers Woudsend stainless steel tank. The semi-trailer’s first and third axle are steering axles, the first axle is also liftable. This combination can crawl around a tight corner like a caterpillar.
The tank capacity is 36 m³. That’s 36,000 L. Or 36,000 kg if the load is water at a temperature of approx. 4° C. There’s your metric system in short. The semi-trailer’s payload capacity is rated at 37,170 kg, whereas the rig’s legal maximum GVM is 50,000 kg.
You must have heard of Steer-By-Wire. Well, this is Steer-By-Cable. No electronics though, it’s a fully mechanical system that has been around for decades. Pictured the first axle.
This is the third axle of the semi-trailer.
As with all mechanical systems, the steering of the axle(s) directly follows the position of the tractor’s fifth-wheel coupling. Bulthuis supplies their system to Vogelzang, both manufacturers of trailers and semi-trailers belong to the same parent company, VB Trailerbouw from the Netherlands.
Pomper is the name of the owner of this immaculate combination. How appropriate, that’s Dutch for pumper. Speaking of which, the pump’s capacity is 6 m³/minute. You can do the rest of the maths yourself.
Related article, another type of semi-trailer steering:
CC Global: Volvo And Welgro – How Animal Feed Is Hauled From The Mill To The Farm
Related article, handling liquid manure:
CC Global: Vervaet Hydro Trike And Schouten Liquid Manure Injector – Too Big To Play On The Lawn
Great graphic of how the axles stay in sync, never would have guessed they use cable. I’m guessing inspection of that cable and its tension is high on the PM list.
Yet another Dutch-registered truck with front identification lights…!
The legislation regarding lighting is quite strict indeed. The general consensus among many truck owners/drivers, on the other hand, can be summarized as: “So what?”
(photo courtesy of truckstar.nl)
I was going to say I though you’ve posted some trucks lit up like a Christmas tree.
Thats quite a cunningly simple trailer steering system and far more reliable than anything electronic could ever be, that could work here though single unit semi trailers are not the most popular setup here, four and five axle drawbar trailers are the prevalent type with B trains making up the rest, only two trailers as in B trains can be towed and kept in their own lane on tight turns B doubles are not used nor are the over long US tractor units for the same reason.
Yes its very simple to work out load weights in the metric system for bulk liquid it all lines up neatly.