Light Weight Design for Heavy Duty Construction
Applying adhesives and sealants to trailer components distributes stress more evenly over the trailer, allowing thinner materials to be used. Light-weight composites and plastics can replace manufacturing with heavier aluminium - more durably and at a lower cost for building materials while conserving natural resources used in transport.
Using adhesives and sealants in trailer construction also helps build reliable transportation that costs less and drastically reduces weight and the construction time, greatly reducing the number of metal fasteners that add to waste and weight.
Build Faster, Smarter, and Stronger
Metal fasteners in conventional models naturally increase the overall stress on trailers, straining trucks and increasing the fuel consumed by transporting the heavier construction.
Fixing parts with metal also requires workers specialising in welding, and these more skilled workers come at a premium. By eliminating welds, the same number of workers can build more trailers faster.
Eliminate Punctures to Improve Performance
Building with adhesives and sealants eliminates holes from fasteners in panels and joints, extending the lifespan of the finished product and increasing the value at resale, since the parts from trailers remain intact.
Applying rivets to roofs on trailers requires adding a sealant to the punctures. By using adhesives and sealants on the roof instead of rivets, fewer workers need to oversee the addition of the roof and can follow shorter processes with fewer steps.
Eliminating holes in trailer components also creates a well-insulated interior that maintains internal temperatures, even while traveling in routes with harsh climates that vary widely. The contents of trailers can remain in a cooler or warmer condition, so temperature-sensitive cargo doesn’t spoil or denature.
H.B. Fuller adhesives and sealants excel in extremes of hot and cold - unfailingly meeting high standards in perishable goods and hygiene product transport, for instance. Our tapes reposition better, and bond long-term, and our product lines include adhesives and sealants for building roofs, in addition to some that meet indirect food contact certified standards.
Preserve the Build and Spare Your Freight
Adhesives and sealants reduce repairs and maintenance related to adverse conditions and the resulting corrosion, ensuring downtime happens less frequently. Adding bonding agents in place of fasteners creates water-tight seams, so water and moisture do not invade the carriers, preventing deterioration of the unit and ruined freight.
H.B. Fuller formulates adhesives and sealants to block and protect against corroding salt, gravel, and road debris. Our highly durable, water-based undercarriage coatings are environmentally friendly and pass stringent chemical resistance and gravel impact tests.
H.B. Fuller partners with its customers to develop customised solutions, such as HydroArmor single-coat underbody coating, engineered to optimise building processes and maximise the value of the trailers made. With proven performance, this coating cleans up easily and fights heat, humidity, and corrosive salt.
Smoother, Better Looking Surfaces
To keep trailers in good condition, solutions for eliminating blemishes are necessary, but grinding and polishing of multi-step welding processes discolour the surfaces and seams of trailers. Bonding agents minimise or eliminate the severe processes that follow welding, including surface prep, concealing scars, and local temper loss of the used materials.
These technologies instead leave surfaces on the exterior smooth for superior aesthetics, creating ideal surfaces for applying graphics that install easily and quickly, as rivets require graphics to be cut and configured around them in conventional construction.
Adhesives and sealants are also gap-filling, non-cracking, and flexible, preventing noise and vibration from transferring in the enclosed trailer, so cargo stays in place without rattling, shaking, or cracking, so the trailer will resist fatigue and maintain its appearance and durability.
Better Performance from Longer-Lasting Bonds
Adhesives and sealants are proven to last longer, perform better than mechanical fasteners, and resist the wear and tear of hauling freight over bumpy and winding roads. As part of the flexible structure, trailer parts move naturally with the trailer's motion while still offering a stronger bond and better impact tolerance.
The bonding agents improve the reinforcement of panels and sheeting, making the entire structure safer and more functionally reliable. As a result, lighter composites and thinner materials withstand greater stress and cause fewer service disruptions, increasing longevity and helping to ensure the structure does not fail prematurely or fatigue as quickly.
UV rays and harsh weather also pose less risk of deteriorating the trailer’s integrity, as adhesives and sealants strongly protect against these elements.
More Options for Greater Possibilities
Adhesives and sealants bond to a variety of dissimilar substrates, including aluminium, wood, plastics, and composite materials. With this ability, new design possibilities open to light-weight materials that meet the specific requirements for your unique design applications.
Whenever a multi-material mix is used, the use of adhesives is often necessary because mechanical joining is simply no longer possible in some combinations. Dissimilar substrates have different thermal elongation and thus require special properties of the joining technology to compensate the different thermal expansion. Adhesives can be adjusted to be elastic to compensate for the different movements of the joining partners.
Diversifying your products with more unique and innovative designs differentiates your brand from competitors, made possible by bonding agents that join combinations of hard-to-bond materials.
H.B. Fuller solutions fulfil technically sophisticated, customer-specific bonding requirements that improve heavy-duty trailers, so they are light-weight and prepared to meet the demands of this growing market.
This article first appeared on H.B Fuller’s website.
