Container trailer - a type of trailer or semi-trailer for transporting sea containers on highways. Includes trailer or semi-trailer chassis and fitting area for container installation. Designed to carry both two 20-foot and one 40 or 45-foot container. A 45-foot container is easy to recognize on the road, as it usually protrudes behind the trailer. In the territory of the Russian Federation and the customs union, the permitted length of a car with a trailer is 20 m.
Semi-trailer with two containers
Container ship without cargo
Features of trailers of this type and work with them
1) The container is fixed manually; the driver personally checks the tightness of his container.
2) Even in the case of a trailer tipping over with proper fastening, the lower part of the container remains fixed on the frame.
3) A trailer of this type has the smallest mass of all similar in size, as it essentially does not have a body superstructure.
4) Among trailers of this type there are semi-trailers with a sliding frame, capable of reducing its length in the absence of a container or at its partial load. The disadvantage of this is the lack of a subframe.
Freightliner car pulls container ship
MAN car with container ship and 2 in 1 multi-lift
Sliding container ship
Some container carriers, for the convenience of driving without a container, are made sliding, thereby reducing their length by almost half from 12 to 7 m.
Hooding and folding are done using electrical, hydraulic and pneumatic mechanisms. Such a system is found in approximately 5% of all such trailers. The disadvantage of this system is the high cost, weight gain and inability to work the trailer in case of failure of the exhaust system in the folded position.
Production in different countries
In Russia, trailers of this type are produced several thousand a year. This is quite a bit, because the German company Schmitz Cargobull during the same time created more than 20 thousand such trailers. In China, the USA and India there are many companies that create trailers of this type, but this is not their main source of income. The average cost of a container trailer is about one million rubles or 15 thousand euros. For comparison: the cost of a refrigerator is several times higher. As a result, even the most developed countries do not produce more than several tens of thousands of units of such trailers, since in large quantities they are not in demand.
See also
- Flatcar