june2023 - 26

SPOTLIGHT ON TRAILER
TRACTOR-TRAILER AIR LINES:
Contamination keep away
How to ensure air stays clean
from the compressor to the
brakes and other systems.
By Seth Skydel
W
hy is it important to ensure a clean, consistent
path for compressed air to take from the
compressor to trailer components, which include
brakes, automatic tire inflations systems, and air
ride systems?
For Richard LaFlamme,
technical services
manager at SAF-Holland, the answer is simple: failure
to do so impacts carriers and their customers.
" Restricted or contaminated air causes premature
component failure, " he said. " The consequence
is unwanted and unplanned out-of-service time,
which delays deliveries and increases maintenance
costs, especially in high duty cycle applications. "
There are other reasons as well.
" The air system uses numerous components
to control the brakes, suspensions, and other
things, " said Dick Winter, lead senior engineer
at Link Mfg. " These valves and solenoids have
seals, O-rings, diaphragms, and other moving
26 Fleet Maintenance | June 2023
parts, which work best when you have clean air. If
contaminants find their way into the air system,
they begin to act on the components, reducing
their effectiveness. "
Chris Stadler, product marketing manager for
Volvo Trucks North America-VNL, noted that any
pneumatic component can be subject to moisture
or oil contamination, so careful attention to
system health and functionality is necessary for
maximum uptime.
" Ensuring the cleanliness of compressed air
is more important than ever given the dramatic
rise in use of vehicle pneumatic technologies
in the past decade, " he added. " Without clean
compressed air the risk of expensive repairs and
downtime dramatically increases. "
Stu Russoli, senior highway product manager for
Mack Trucks, agreed, adding that " pneumatic technologies
have become integral to the safe operation
of trucks, so delivering consistent, clean compressed
air to those systems is extremely important. "
But defining 'high-quality' air is difficult
because there isn't an industry standard, related
Richard Nagel, director of marketing and customer
solutions for air supply and drivetrain at Bendix
Commercial Vehicle Systems. " And yet, " he said,
" because systems today are more sophisticated
than they used to be, they also require a higher
quality of air. "
According to Mark Hawkins, head of technical
products for Redline Detection, air brake leaks
are becoming an even bigger issue for some fleets.
Hawkins said some of today's heavy-duty trucks
have characteristics that make them more susceptible
to a leak.
Historically, main lines were made of heavy-duty
copper with threaded connections. Leaks rarely
emerged unless rub-through occurred, Hawkins
explained. " Fleets never really had a problem
because everything had a good, heavy-duty
connection, and everything was still threaded
between parts, " he said.
Today, this is not always the case. There are
large bundles of air lines because air is being
supplied not only to the brakes, but also to the
suspension and the cab, among other areas of the
vehicle. " Things just aren't as robust as they used
to be, " Hawkins related.
What happens when
air is not clean?
If air systems are not maintained properly, they
22369143 | Jamie_Otto | Dreamstime
june2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of june2023
