With the help of a Kenworth twin-steer front axle and Kenworth engineering expertise, concrete mixers at Bryan Pfohl's company, Carolina Sunrock Corp., are more productive and easier for drivers to operate.

Fifteen of Carolina Sunrock's 40-plus mixers are Kenworth T800s equipped with the twin-steer axles. The company said its first twin-steer trucks can do more each working day, increasing productivity.
"On certain jobs, we can often make one more trip per day with the Kenworth T800 twin steer because of reduced round-trip times," said Graham Poole, vice president for the Raleigh-Durham, N.C. company. "Our productivity is also up because we have less downtime for maintenance. In our first year of owning these Kenworths, our maintenance costs were much less than our other trucks. The twin-steer trucks will pay for themselves much quicker than the others."
Pfohl has wanted to improve on the performance of his company's mixers for years. He wanted an axle design that would distribute weight more evenly throughout the truck and that would meet both federal and North Carolina's vehicle weight laws, known as "bridge" laws, which govern how much weight a truck's axles can carry. He also sought a truck that would be more stable when cornering as the mixer drum was cycling. Last year, he called on Cooper Sykes, principal of Cooper Kenworth, the Kenworth dealer in North Carolina, to help with the solution.
Sykes, working with Kenworth application engineers, recommended the twin-steer configuration. The arrangement, including two front axles and two pusher axles, spreads the loaded weight over six axles and 16 wheels, instead of the conventional five axles and 14 wheels.
"For years the ready-mix industry has been using the boost-a-load, or trailing-arm lift axle, for rear-discharge applications," Sykes said. "In North Carolina, the twin-steer design offers the same payload capacity of 10 cubic yards of concrete as the boost-a-load. It also moves more of the weight forward and transfers the weight over all of the wheels. It gives the driver better maneuverability and a more comfortable ride."
Poole said the Kenworth T800 twin-steer-equipped trucks maneuver better at job sites. "Customers often request that we use this truck to deliver concrete because the truck doesn't rip up the job site," he said. "Drivers like the trucks because they are more stable on the road and we believe that they are much less likely to overturn. They are also easier to wash down after a job since there is no lift axle to clean. This saves the driver time and gets them to the next job faster."
The Kenworth T800 twin steer is an ideal design for body configurations that carry more weight forward, according to Jim Bechtold, Kenworth's chief engineer. "This works well for applications such as tanker truck, crane or boom truck, oil field rig-up trucks, dump trucks or mixers," he said. "These applications need off-road maneuverability as well as superb on-road ride and handling and the Kenworth T800 twin steer delivers.
In certain applications the second steer axle can take the place of an additional pusher axle, reducing the amount of tire scrubbing and overall tire wear. In addition, there's less wear and tear on the truck chassis since the operator doesn't have to raise and lower the lift axle, Bechtold noted.
The twin steer is available on the T800 in capacities from 26,400 to 37,500 pounds and on the Kenworth C500, rated at 36,000 to 40,000 pounds.
Kenworth is a division of Paccar Inc. Kenworth's Internet home page is at www.kenworth.com.