In the construction of commercial vehicles, lightweight construction has been and continues to be of great importance due to the factor of the payload - that is, the customer (also) pays for the payload. This is shown, for example, in the pendulum springs (now also called boogie springs) made from glass-reinforced plastic, which were developed by MAN at the start of the 1990s with the support of BASF and which were designed for an axle load of 2x 13 t (see figure 1). Compared with the trapezoidal springs at the time, this meant a weight reduction of approx. 340 kilograms; even today, the springs save 220 kilograms compared with state-of-the-art parabolic springs.
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