The Swiss army knife of trucks is still a dream, but a truck equipped with Scania’s new RB885 tandem bogie would at least come quite close from an axle perspective. Not only is it well suited for GTWs of up to 90 tonnes on tarmac, it also comes with several gearings to choose from and the option to order it as both liftable and disengageable.
“The RB885 offers great flexibility for many customers”, says Bo Eriksson, Product Manager, Scania Trucks. “The tandem drive secures startability without strains while the single-reduction offers reasonable fuel consumption also at higher speeds. Add to that the optional disengagement and lift features for the second bogie axle and you get a versatile and smart timber truck for instance”.
RB885 has no differential between the first and the second axle. That means increased robustness and that the axles will rotate with the same speed, providing solid startability performance. Within each axle, there is a lockable differential that preferably is activated by the driver under challenging starting conditions.
Topography, gross train weight, road conditions and speed are the most important factors when specifying axles. Choosing the new RB885 means that a lot of those bases will be covered in a flexible way. By ordering the disengageable configuration, fuel savings of up to six percent can be expected for an unladen timber truck (most of it from reduced friction inside the axle, only a lesser part can be attributed to reduced rolling resistance). It will of course also mean less tyre wear and tighter turning radius since a 6×4 will appear more like a 4×2 when the second axle is raised.
“I would say this is the perfect axle choice for trucks with varied loads and demands”, says Eriksson. “It is combining a lot of important but quite diverse aspects in one robust solution”.