Future aero walmart trucks

[Frank Lee]

I wonder how much the carbon fiber trailer weighs vs. conventional?

[jaylhouse]

The article says it saves about 4000 pounds.

[NeilBlanchard]

The turbine shown in the video is a Capstone unit. It will be interesting to hear more about the battery pack and the electric drivetrain.

Edit: someone on CleanMPG found some more information:

http://www.examiner.com/article/walm...-trailer-truck

Powering this technological tour-de-force is a Capstone Turbine engine coupled to an electrical powertrain. ... Their light weight, small size, and quick starting time make them ideal as "instant-on" backup power to recharge the main batteries. An example of a hybrid vehicle is the Capstone CTM-380, with a 30 kW gas turbine generator running on diesel, that recharges Li-Poly batteries when necessary. The CMT-380 has a proposed range of 80 miles on battery alone, but when combined with the micro turbine that range is pushed to over 500+ miles.

[Joegreen90]

Will there be enough fuel saved to cover the cost of a at least 2 sides of 53' carbon fiber per truck?

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by Joegreen90

Will there be enough fuel saved to cover the cost of a at least 2 sides of 53' carbon fiber per truck?

The concept is of course the ultimate expression of "what if" and "why not", but as usual production models will surely be less glamorous.

I suspect something like fiberglass, aluminum or a composite like Monopan could easily be an affordable substitution for carbon fiber.

MonoPan :: The Future in Material Technology

Neil (and Rustylugnut), thank you for providing all of the hybrid information, I missed this on my first skimming of the article.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

I wonder how much the carbon fiber trailer weighs vs. conventional?

For a comparable, although I'm not sure how close, I offer this quote below.

MonoPan :: About MonoPan®

Greater Payload with Vehicles
You can improve your payload ratio at will with the MonoPan® body assembly. You can transport up to 70% more payload (approximately 600kg in comparison with a 3.5 ton vehicle with a body assembly made of plywood). This means that you can carry almost 1500kg of freight with a 3.5 ton truck made of MonoPan®. Whereas you would need a 7.5 ton truck of conventional construction for the same payload.

You will want a trailer material which will not show/telegraph interior dents, creases, and scratches. Some impact strength from blows caused by loading will also be favorable.

A double wall composite or honeycomb makes a great deal of sense to me.

I don't see where the CF trailer is listed as having a foam core, if it's a single skin with nothing else it's still going to need some hard points or frame I suspect.

[igo]

I just came across a video about this Semi on weather.com of all things! Was going to make a thread about it but, I guess someone already caught it.

I think it's a really neat design although I am a little skeptical about a carbon fiber trailer (mainly because of cost). The cab looks really nice.