Dana Holding Corporation has published a new white paper for the commercial trucking industry that addresses the need for fleets and original-equipment manufacturers to properly manage the higher driveline torques that come from using more fuel-efficient downspeed engines.
“The Right Solution for Downsped Engines” is free and may be downloaded at www.danacv.com/downspeedingwhitepaper.
Authored by Andy Nieman, vice president of global engineering for Dana Commercial Vehicle Technologies, it describes the motivations behind downspeeding, what constitutes downspeeding, and fuel consumption and environmental benefits. The piece goes on to explain how the resulting higher torques place added stress on a vehicle’s axle, driveshaft, and inter-axle.
It then presents strategies for managing the higher torques, including Dana’s recommendation for specifying proper driveline components. These components, the paper explains, need to be carefully engineered, thoroughly tested, and proven to be fully capable of delivering the necessary performance in a high-torque environment.
Charts help illustrate the data.
The Dana system optimized for engine downspeeding includes the Spicer AdvanTEK 40 tandem axle, the SPL 350 driveshaft, and the SPL 250 inter-axle shaft.
The Spicer AdvanTEK 40 axle is now available with ratios that support the engine downspeeding efforts of truck manufacturers, including the industry’s fastest axle ratio of 2.26:1. The Spicer AdvanTEK 40 tandem axle was developed with faster axle ratios to handle the higher axle input torques that result from lowering engine rpm at highway cruise speed, which enables increased overall vehicle efficiency of up to 2%.
Ultimately, the Spicer AdvanTEK 40 axle can help a truck operating in a typical linehaul duty cycle save more than 2,700 gallons of diesel fuel over a five-year time span. That translates into as much as $10,000 in estimated operating savings and a reduction of over 60,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide output compared with most tandem axle offerings on the road today.
The other piece of Dana’s engine downspeeding solution is the SPL 350 driveshaft and SPL 250 inter-axle shaft, which are engineered to maximize the efficiency and durability of the Spicer AdvanTEK 40 tandem axle and low-rpm engines.
The robust heavy-duty SPL 350 driveshaft and SPL 250 inter-axle shaft offer more power density, can carry 40% more torque, and offer double the bearing life of competitive designs. They can supply up to a million miles of life in a downspeed engine powertrain.
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