trailer world Issue Two 2012

38 Issue Two 2012 Am Buss Hansa Terminal im Trave- hafen Hamburg bugsiert ein Kran die 20 Tonnen schweren Kisten mit den Industrieofenteilen auf das Schiff nach China. And the development of agricultural vehicles is by no means standing still. After the trend changed from maximum speeds of 25 to 40 km/h, requests for vehicles with speeds of up to 80 km/h now face the developers, who with CAD and finite-element devel- opment are equipped with the very latest design tools. Speed is of course not everything in the industrial work in large- scale agriculture. The need for positive-steered and electronically controlled axles respectively stems not only from the soil-preserv- ing driving style of heavy three-axle trailers. It is also a matter of the tyre wear. “The new 26.5 to 32” high special tyres up to a me- tre wide cost around € 3,000 each”, explains Frank Eisenkrämer, Agricultural Application Consultant at BPW in Wiehl, with regard to the trend towards steering axles for agricultural trailers. In addi- tion to traditional self-tracking trailers, the Hungarian axle experts also have electronically regulated hydraulic controls with pickups on the drawbar in the high-tech programme. The developments in agricultural technology that have taken place in recent years are clearly evidenced, for example, by modern slurry tank vehicles. While the farmer previously transported the fertiliser to the field in a barrel on a conventional trailer chassis and applied it by hand, high-tech trailers are used today, which apply the manure directly to the soil by means of injection lines, and are resupplied by a fleet of tankers at the point of use in a very short time (24,000 litre in 3 minutes). High-tech on the topsoil, in which the time required and the efficiency of the operation directly con- trol the economic success. From Raba to BPW Hungária International »We construct high-tech solutions directly to customer specifications, and mostly in small batch sizes.« Péter Mándli, Agricultural Division Manager of BPW-Hungária The Hungarian BPW axle production can look back on a long history. The firm of Raba was founded in 1896 as a Hungar- ian wagon and engineering works for vehicle construction, specialising in the production of rolling stock for railways. This was later followed by modern trucks and buses, and in the Second World War, even aircraft were built in Gyor. After the war, the Raba range was extended to include railcars and locomotives. From 1979 the Hungarian nationalised company Raba produced axles of various types at the location Szombathely. In 1992, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, the group suffered drastic losses, and was converted into the Raba AG with Hungarian state participation. Successful axle production continued from 1991 in a joint venture with BPW. Since 2004, the works in north-western Hungary employing 1,200 people has been run solely by BPW. The two product ar- eas of Agriculture and Road now produce 150,000 to 200,000 axles per year, making BPW-Hungária the largest production location of BPW after the German parent works. In agricultural technology the trend is moving towards faster transport

trailer world Issue Two 2012

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