Let me slide

With that striking slogan on two new trucks, transport company F. Eiland from Heerde attracts plenty of attention. The first introduction to the Fliegl sliding system was in 2011. However, it was not until last year that owner John Bosman decided to invest in two vehicles that were delivered ex-factory with an insulated cargo box with sliding mechanism.

Bosman gives several reasons for choosing Fliegl. "Along the roads there are more and more trees and overpasses, making traditional tipping buckets less practical. Even more important is the expected lowering of the maximum temperature of asphalt to 150 °C to reduce emissions. Without proper insulation, asphalt cools very quickly during transport, causing the bitumen to malfunction." Fliegl installs special foam sheets 7 to 12 cm thick between the steel bin and the aluminum outer wall. This creates a fully insulated bin, including side wall, bottom, front and rear wall.

A lower asphalt temperature requires more adhesive, which causes problems with adhesion in traditional tipping buckets. Fliegl's sliding floor and walls have hard steel scrapers, which scrape the bucket clean during unloading. So the driver no longer has to do this manually. Fliegl uses a 2-phase sliding system where first the front half of the bottom slides over the other and then the headboard pushes the residue out of the bin. This prevents compression of the product and reduces pressure on the side walls, which can be made lighter.

John also sees advantages in the way the asphalt is pushed out. "With traditional dumpers, coarse and cold gravel falls into the finisher first and only then hot asphalt, which gives weak spots in the road. The Fliegl sliding system ensures better mixing during unloading and thus in an even asphalt bed." Eiland chose a WVT converted MAN TGS 10×2 tipper truck with 25 m³ bucket and a DAF CF 6×2 tractor with tandem trailer and a 27.5 m³ sliding bucket. Both vehicles have a GVW of 50 tons and weigh 18.1 and 20.8 tons empty, respectively.