Design and manufacture of car carrier

Abstract

Currently the loading of cars in car carrier is done manually by the truck drivers. The drivers load car carrier by climbing over the height of 1.5 meters, which is limitation in existing designs. While loading cars on the top of the prime mover, driver needs to reach top of the car carrier to load and strap cars in positions above 1.5 meters. This cause's potential risks on falls from heights; identified as an issue in car carrier sector by OHS authorities. This research focuses on health and safety issues in present car carriers and improvement in designing of a car carrier, which eliminates loading of cars above 1.5 meters from ground level. This research develops a new car carrier with improved design mechanisms to avoid the climbing of the driver over the height of 1.5 meters without compromising on specifications of car carrier, including number of cars, variety of cars like SUV, small cars etc. For the first time in the sector, car carrier is developed which will be capable of loading eight cars and safe by design due to elimination of drivers climbing on identified risk areas. After a short review of historic origin of the sector and identifying problems in present car carriers, research emphasises on development of car carrier to overcome falls related issues. Discussions on different layouts, to resolve problems identified and keeping design complaint with ADR and OHS regulations are presented. Latest techniques in product development including virtual design process (VDP), computer aided design (CAD), product data management (PDM), and finite element analyses (FEA) were used throughout car carrier designs for validation and verifications