Cartwright creates low-height double deck fridge trailer for Culina Logistics

Cartwright engineers have designed a new low height double deck fridge, in what major customer Culina Logistics has described as a ‘game-changer’.

Culina Logistics approached Cartwright with a problem it faced distributing to a large supermarket customer in the Republic of Ireland, where there is a restricted access height of 4,650 mm in the Dublin Tunnel. Because of this, mainland road access to the Ireland has been off limits to Double Deck Temperature-Controlled trailers coming into the country, ordinarily built to 4,880mm high.

In an industry first, Cartwright managed to build a double deck temperature-controlled trailer at a height of 4,650mm, without compromising Culina’s 1,830mm cage height requirement on each deck.

As well as this being advantageous to trailers entering Ireland, this changes the landscape of temperature-controlled trailer distribution by increasing fuel economy up to 4% (Culina are currently undertaking road tests for an exact measure) as well as other advantages that come with a reduced height. 

Culina can expect to see less damage caused by trees and low bridges, especially prevalent on unpredictable motorway diversion routes. Furthermore, the weight of the trailer has been greatly reduced, increasing the payload that the trailer can deliver. With a more efficient trailer, Culina expects to roll the new design out to its entire fleet across the U.K. 

Lionel Curtis, Technical Director of Cartwright, explained: “The task required different manufacturing and assembly techniques which we were already familiar with, but when we weight tested the deck there was no residual deflection whatsoever 

“The deck was carefully designed and analysed to make it work with different materials and processes. This project needed some careful structuraldesign but we are very pleased with the results,” he added.