PROFILE | PTE Group
Water Tank Transporter Tag Trailer
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here’s no job too big when it comes to manufacturing trailers for clients. PTE Group sales manager Gary Nicholls was approached by a potential customer to come up with a design and manufacture a custom heavy-duty, purpose-built tag trailer. The trailer would transport two water tanks that have a diameter of 4.6m and 3.45m wide. Gary designed a unique trailer, which consisted of two arcs to cradle the tanks 200mm from the ground. The trailer was fabricated with dimensions 8570mm long x 2480mm wide with ABS/EBS ADR38 specification axles for stability control and an “S” cam air-brake system. The trailer also had to be fabricated to meet legal capacity and tare weights of the truck/trailer combination in which it was to tow. The trailer was designed with hydraulic mechanisms to tilt the tanks sideways to off-load on site. Another stipulation was that the tanks would have to be able to be rotated on the trailer on arrival to position manhole and outlets. Gary developed a hydraulic design whereby the tanks were capable to be lifted and rotated on a cam-roller system.
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WATM • May 2020
The design also had to include the transporting of the trailer at the legal length when unladen and be able to extend to allow for additional tank/ tanks when loaded to be transported by the truck. Hydraulics were to be self-sufficient of the trailer so a separate dieselpowered hydraulic pump was produced to enable this to be operational. The trailer was blasted, primed and painted with 2 Pak paint to customer fleet colours to a high quality standard. The top-floor section of the arcs were covered with a surface which was sourced not to mark or scratch tanks in transit. A view from the client’s end comes from West Coast Poly’s CEO Stephen Thompson. “We’ve been transporting tanks for 28 years. This trailer was purpose built specifically for our larger roto-moulded storage tanks. This allows for carting low to the ground and less manhandling at time of delivery.” The trailers need to handle some rough conditions when the tanks are delivered on farm and to mines alike. This trailer makes it number 11, with a second, slightly modified trailer being built at the moment (by PTE), making it 12 trailers in the company’s vast fleet.
TRAILER SPECS Custom trailer to carry two water tanks Custom-built single-axle tag 7T aggregate 3.2T capacity 8570L x 2500 75mm bracing 3mm flat steel floor plate with outdoor carpet covering to tank sections Hydraulic rams for tank tilt over Valve bank and hoses Diesel-driven power pack 95mm Bartlett hitch S-Cam air brakes Load-sensing valve/ABS hubs 17.5 radial tyres including spare Landing leg Hydraulic tank roller system Extendable drawbar x 1000mm LED lights Sandblasted and painted colour of client’s choice
