DEVELOPMENT OF THE HERBERT 10 TONNE CANE WAGON By

GREEN-CANE harvesting has reduced the mass of cane in a cane wagon and increased cane transport costs by requiring more cane wagon volume to transport the same mass of sugar cane to the sugar mill. This implies that the components of a cane wagon are under less stress for a train hauling green cane than for a train hauling burnt cane. A fundamental requirement to reduce cane transport costs is to carry the highest practical axle load per wheel set. Further improvements with the load carrying capacity of the 15! wheel set and the favourable field results achieved with the five joined 4 tonne bin prototypes during the past year have enabled the development of a 10 tonne cane wagon on two axles. The benefits of the 10 tonne cane wagon developed for the Herbert include the lowest cost per tonne cane and lowest tare mass per tonne cane, cane wagon for the Australian sugar industry. This wagon takes the next step in realising improved cane transfer efficiency from haul-out to mill yard with a simple cost effective design. The tare mass of the 10 tonne cane wagon is 1.2 tonne. A back-to-basics approach was used to eliminate members with low stress, simplify the wheel set thereby reducing capital, operating and maintenance costs, and introduce a polypropylene bi-axially oriented integrally extruded geo-grid with rigid junctions and stiff ribs as a sling to carry the cane load.