Autocar

Triz Engineering develops a new heavy duty chassis for Autocar.

Autocar contracted Triz Engineering to develop a new super-heavy chassis, specifically designed for concrete pump trucks and loop belt units. The company needed a chassis that could accommodate a 50m – 60m pump and loop belt units, converting their current 8×4 HD straight rail chassis into 12×6 and increasing the gross vehicle rating from 86,000lb to 126,000lb.

Autocar is a proudly American-owned company, headquartered in Hagerstown, Indiana. It is the only American truck manufacturer focused on trucks for severe-duty vocational applications. Above all, Autocar is focused on its clients, using their “Always Up” promise to highlight their focus on their customers’ unique needs.

Autocar’s trucks help their customers to be more successful and achieve their challenging objectives. As the industry’s technology and innovation leader, Autocar has delivered more natural gas vehicles than all of their competitors combined. Autocar is the oldest motor vehicle manufacturer in the United States and built America’s first truck in 1899.

For this project, we began with a feasibility study to help the customer understand the costs, our development approach and the possible outcomes. This ensured that Autocar knew exactly what kind of chassis could be manufactured and how best we could design it.

To build the new chassis, we designed and integrated a:

  • Tridem rear drive design;
  • New front suspension;
  • Tri-steer axle conversion;
  • New brake system;
  • Electrical system updates (ABS and rear axle differential lock harness); and
  • Optimized Allison transmission 6th gear shift point.

The outcome of the project was a new 12×6 Autocar ACX cab chassis, the largest Autocar product offering, which opened new market applications for Autocar speciality vehicles. Additionally, the Tridem rear drive design offers three different axle spreads and six wheel bases.