Heavy duty
The design of the heavy-duty truck rear axle has seen no major changes over the past few decades. The casings of the rear axle represent at least 1000 kg of products/components in a heavy-duty truck, more than 10% of the total mass. This project combines two separate areas for improvement within an axle: the housings (of axle, satellite, pinion, etc.) and the gears, differential, etc. The latter area includes important technological aspects such as friction/tribology and surface treatments/coatings.
Research goals
The goal of this research was to significantly reduce the friction loss of the rear axle by 30-40% and to reduce the weight of the rear axle of a DAF truck by 15-20%. Reduction of weight and friction loss saves significant amounts of fuel. With the new design of the rear axle, it was also attempted to reduce the complexity of the design.
Fuel savings
Throughout this project two rear axle prototypes were produced with 17% weight loss (e.g. 65 kg) and 28% reduction of friction losses.These newly designed rear axles have immense environmental implications. For annual DAF sales the fuel saving is estimated to be 16 million liters per year. The reduction of CO2 emission by DAF trucks is estimated at 30 kton per year.
Partners
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