Tieman Tankers become Boral Standard
30/Apr/2004
Boral took delivery of its seventh Tieman stainless steel bitumen tanker in April 2004.
Boral chose the cutting edge Tieman design following a thorough search for the best fleet replacement solution.
Their national bitumen tanker project team found that Tieman's stainless steel tanker offers significantly lower tare weight, far superior heat retention and lower whole-of-life costs.
And Tieman's revolutionary use of stainless steel ends corrosion problems associated with traditional mild steel barrels. Corrosion is caused by moisture produced in the alternating hot/cold bitumen delivery cycles.
Tieman had been building stainless steel tankers for 50 years when they designed their new generation bitumen tanker. That unparalleled design and fabrication experience allowed Tieman to solve many longstanding problems faced by bitumen tanker operators.
Merv Rowlands of Boral says they expect their new tankers to last in excess of 20 years without the concerns about corrosion and barrel thinning of traditional mild steel tankers.
"Although it meant the highest initial outlay it was by far the best long term economic decision for Boral", Mr Rowlands adds. "It was the lightest design on the market, but Tieman used a very sophisticated Finite Element Analysis to optimise the design and ensure no loss of strength."
There is far more to the new Tieman design than the use of stainless steel.
10 external and four internal structural stiffeners offer superior control of stress from the weight of the payload and the constant expansion and contraction that affects all bitumen tankers. The stiffeners plus the corrosion resistance of stainless steel allow use of a thinner wall for significant weight savings.
Tieman's proven strong chassis-free trailer design also plays an important part in improved thermal performance because it allows full wrap around insulation and cladding. Even the trailer belly plate and ribs are insulated. And there is no conventional chassis to act as cooling fins for the hot payload.
"We are getting fantastic results from improved heat retention", Mr Rowlands says. "We're saving money in gas and in drivers' time sitting by the side of the road waiting for the load to re-heat after travel."
Boral's drive for higher productivity also led them to specify lightweight aluminium external cladding rather than the stainless steel cladding used by other Tieman customers. That saved an additional 230-kg per tri-axle trailer.
"Demands for increased productivity and safety are driving our customers and driving this company", Tieman Chief Executive Hymie Jechilevsky says. "We have invested heavily in smart technology and workforce training to meet those demands and allow us to quickly produce new designs to take advantage of both regulatory and technological change in the future."
Tieman has built more than 3,000 dairy, wine, petrol, chemical and bitumen tankers for applications ranging from outback road-trains to metro and farm pick-up and deliveries.
The company is based in Melbourne and has an extensive national sales and service support network.
