May 6, 2008
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=supper-tipper-truck
A Dump Truck for the 21st Century
Conceptual "tipper" truck adds efficiency to construction sites that
today's dump trucks cannot match
TEXT SIZE: By Larry Greenemeier
SUPER TIPPER TRUCK
Courtesy of Haishan Deng
Slideshow: View the "super tipper"
http://www.sciam.com/slideshow.cfm?id=supper-tipper-truck
For more than a century "tipper" trucks—so called for their ability to
lift their cargo beds at an angle that allows their contents to empty
without manual intervention—have helped construction crews haul heavy
building materials, including tons of asphalt and gravel at a time.
The typical model of tipper seen on construction sites worldwide is
the dump truck, which uses a hydraulic lift to raise one end of its
cargo bed high into the air while its contents slide out of the back
or to the side. Munich-based truck maker F.X. Meiller GmbH & Co KG has
seen the future of construction hauling, and it is a sleek all-wheel
drive tipper capable of dumping on all four directions.
Chinese trans****tation designer Haishan Deng created a series of
concept drawings depicting what Meiller's new "super tipper" truck in
action that won him a 2007 red dot award for product design from
Germany's Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen, an institution formed in
1955 to promote industrial design aesthetics. Inspired by the movement
of quadruped animals, Deng designed the super tipper with independent
suspension arms that absorb uneven terrain better than conventional
dump trucks.
No word yet on when Meiller plans to build these tippers or how much
they will cost, but Deng says the truck's six engines and battery
system will be the priciest parts. A scaled-down prototype is
scheduled to be on display May 17-20 in New York at the International
Contem****ary Furniture Fair.
