How Ashok Leyland kept the Boss fit

With its all-new Boss intermediate commercial vehicle platform, Ashok Leyland introduced several lightweighting initiatives but some of them are likely to only benefit the export market because of domestic pricing considerations, says KiranBajad.  

Ashok Leyland has embarked on a project to lightweight its entire truck range. Lightweighting is crucial for commercial vehicles because reduced weight translates into an immediate payload increase for operators and, importantly, enhances fuel efficiency, the biggest driver of operating economics for trucks.

Last year, the truckmaker launched a slew of offerings based on the Boss platform. Employing this platform, the company was able to achieve a reduction of 300kg as compared to the previous generation Ecomet trucks.
Dr VenkatSrinivas, special director, product development, told Autocar Professional,” “When we started working on the Boss, our mandate was to reduce the unladen weight of the vehicle. We refined our approach by collecting specific application-type data from the field on how the vehicles were being used. This included not just data in terms of payload but of specific engineering levels. We collated the strain measurement at the frame sections, at cross-sections, at various joints, suspension mounting brackets and so on.”

BIG OPPORTUNITY TO LOSE WEIGHT
“Considering the Boss was a clean-sheet programme, it offered the company an opportunity to look at every aspect of the vehicle afresh. Ashok Leyland worked on the chassis, frame, model and application, thickness and specifications of material. Unlike the Captain range of medium and heavy CVs (M&HCVs) where other than the cab, all the key aggregates are the same as that of the U-Truck, the focus was pre-dominantly on integrating the new cab,” says Dr Srinivas.
As a result, the Boss chassis has been optimised, the cross-members do not carry extra weight as they have been perforated and thus use less material. The front axle is a completely new design with lighter weight. The 220-litre fuel tank is made of polymer along with brackets and the battery carriers are lighter. The Boss’s 20-foot load body is about 80kg lighter as compared to the Ecomet.
Besides this, the vehicle’s tubeless radial tyres have potential for weight reduction but Ashok Leyland has offered them as optional fitment. All seven wheels including the spare tyre can potentially reduce 60-70kg. Further, the aluminium wheel rims also reduce weight but this comes at a cost as they are twice the price of steel wheels.
Plastic fenders on either side of the cab and covering the wheel arches also offer lightweighting potential. Besides this, aggregates like the engine, gearboxes and the cab are areas which can be constantly improved and lightweighted over each generation. For example, Ashok Leyland’s in-house designed and developed Neptune engine is lighter as compared to the earlier H-Series engine.

LIGHT CAN ALSO BE STRONG
Ashok Leyland has also developed plastic bumpers for the Boss platform but has not introduced the product in India because at present customers are not in favour of the lightweight alternative to conventional metal bumpers. So the company is eyeing only the export market. “We are ready to introduce these plastic bumpers once the domestic market is ready,” avers Dr Srinivas.
Choice of material, particularly high-strength steel, also offers opportunity to reduce vehicle weight. At present, the industry uses 460 mega pascalmaterial; higher grade steel of 600, 650 or 750 mega pascals would offer more strength but in India it will take some more time before this metal can be economical enough for large-scale use. “At the Auto Expo earlier this year in New Delhi, a few Indian commercial vehicle manufacturers showcased their products made from higher grade of steel. Ashok Leyland has also used high grade steel on a few of its vehicles,” reveals Dr Srinivas.
Due to rampant overloading of CVs across the country, enforcement of GVW in India is a key challenge for OEMs when they offer lightweight solutions. The situation in overseas markets though is starkly different. Since overloading is under control in many developed markets, lightweight products are well recognised in Dubai, South Africa and Eastern Europe. “In the more developed markets, we focus on lightweighting because we have to deliver very weight-efficient designs in these markets,” explains DrSrinivas. So while such products would naturally provide benefits locally, it is the export market that gets the benefits of the more lightweight vehicles. So, clearly there is a need for improved awareness of the benefits of lightweighting in India. OEMs would do well to drive home these positives to fleet owners through sustained campaigns.

INTERVIEW DR VENKAT SRINIVAS, SPECIAL DIRECTOR, PDT DEVELOPMENT

What was the mandate for the Boss while designing the platform?
The chassis is the heart of commercial vehicle, the frame is its backbone. So the process starts with how we size the frame for a given model and application. When we started working on the Boss, we decided to reduce the unladen weight of the vehicle. We collected data on strain measurement at the frame sections, at cross-sections at various joints, suspension mounting brackets and so on. We were trying not to oversize the aggregates; so the worst thing we can do while designing is to have the biggest aggregates on every vehicle. It won’t be good from a weight standpoint, a cost stand point and will affect the end-user ultimately.

How you cope up with the issue of overloading?
We design for certain amount of overloading, there’s no other way to go about it. We can’t design everything to the maximum overload that is why we offer variants, for instance, 11.9 tonnes in the Boss range, then we have the 12.9, so the 12.9 is significantly overload-capable than the 11.9. That is how we target selling different applications.

You have lightweighted the Boss in areas such as the front axle, fuel tank and chassis frame. Are you looking at any other areas?
If you see aggregates like the cab, engine or gearbox, these are the areas where we can constantly improve from one generation to other but unfortunately for the generation for these items is fairly long. The gearbox serves a company for 20-30 years and the same is true for engines that may be 40 years old albeit with modifications.
You can also reduce weight by using aluminium wheels, so depending on a particular application, tubeless radials help save weight. In the vehicles we are homologating, we offer tubeless radials but the market is not opting for such tyres.

Given the cost implications, how do you go about it?
We take a selective approach and ascertain the cost-benefit trade-off. So lightweighting efforts have to be focused on areas where the risk of overloading perhaps doesn’t matter as much. For instance, parts like plastic fenders are not subjected to heavy overloading. So there are parts of the vehicles that we can lightweight without much risk.