Log Bolster Attachements win Engineering Excellence Award

25 November 2010

A log bolster attachment designed by the Log Transport Safety Council and fitted to 1000 trucks won the Mechanical and Manufacturing category of the 2010 New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards celebrated in Wellington this evening.

The award was presented by Engineer and Labour MP Ashraf Choudhary, at a gala function hosted by Linda Clark and attended by more than 350 people.

In recent times logging trucks have grown rapidly in power and capacity with powers increasing from 100 kW to 400 kW, and with allowable loads on the highways being substantially increased. Speeds have increased and brakes have been much improved, leading to higher imposed loads on the vehicle attachments.

Prior to the implementation of this project there was growing concern in the logging industry about the number of roll-over accidents that logging trucks were having. A possible cause identified in some of these roll overs was the breaking away of bolsters from the vehicle. Bolster attachments cracking and distorting was common.

In a world first, The Log Transport Safety Council was formed to develop a Bolster Attachment Code and operational tests were designed and carried out on a trial trailer. Following field-testing the recorded data was analysed and summarised to just a few pertinent coefficients. These figures were compared to the known results of existing bolster attachments in operation, with strong correlations found between the test results and the performance of actual attachments. The success of the code is in no small way the result of establishing these simple figures, which have withstood scrutiny and testing on real life installations.

‘This is very well engineered solution to a New Zealand problem that was impacting many people’ said the Industrial Awards Judging Panel, led by Convenor Warwick Bishop,’ These are logical and clever solutions to a number of subtly different problems all with the same basic outcomes’.

The project, which involved thirty engineers, has resulted in a dramatic improvement in bolster attachment performance with a direct associated improvement in New Zealand road safety.

Initiated in 2005, the New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards are the premier awards for the engineering professionals of New Zealand. The awards are presented in two major areas: Awards Recognising People, that recognise leadership, innovation, entrepreneurship and our young engineers; and Project and Product Awards, which recognise achievement in the various industry areas, together with a Supreme Award for the best of the Project and Product winners.