Aerodynamic duo for long distance transport

We drove the same road twice with a truck and trailer on the Austrian A1 Westautobahn from Mondsee to Sattledt and back again: once lowered the rear of the Eco-Flex trailer, once at the normal height of 280 cm. The cruising speed was 85 km/h with a rise and fall speed of -4/+4 km/h. On a steep incline before a new ascent, GPS also enables a peak descent of 92 km/h for a short period without getting on the driver’s card.

Traffic flowed smoothly and there were no major turbulences: the 13-liter DAF XG + engine ran like clockwork. With 480 horsepower, the truck had no trouble in our roughly 30 tons gross weight, despite the topographically demanding road. Thanks to the optimal noise isolation, we were also able to enjoy an impressive silence behind the wheel.

The aerodynamic effect of the trailer was especially noticeable in the strong side and head winds, which sometimes blew around our ears with gusts of up to 26 km / h that day. The wind not only affected the speed, but also saved a lot of fuel. However, looking at the entire track, we couldn’t measure any fuel savings from the eco-trailer, because the classic trailer has an advantage when there’s a tailwind. We didn’t think it was very helpful to draw any conclusions about the savings potential of the trailer as a whole from this single test in strong, windy weather. This is why we only display the depreciation results for each of the test runs in the table as an average overall result for the truck and trailer. Nikolai Rashkov, Director of Business Development at Eurospeed in Bulgaria, assured TRAKTUELL of the potential for savings in operating the Schmitz Eco-Trailer. “The Eco-Trailer’s greatest benefits are on long, obstacle-free roads such as highways with moderate to light traffic. Winding roads with heavy traffic that do not allow for high average speeds reduce the impact of the trailer.” The freight forwarder is currently determining how high the possibility of Exact savings on extensive field testing over a longer period of time, and the result is still outstanding.