New vacuum truck
18. august 2010
Soon a new vacuum truck for waste collection will arrive to Odense. It is the world´s first waste vacuum vehichle of this kind.
In Odense underground containers at 3-5 m3 is getting very popular. These containers used to be emptied by crane, but the working environment is bad and waste tends to fly away when it is windy. Percolate can also be a problem when emptying the containers by crane.
Through a longer period of time, OWMC has worked on an idea of developing a new kind of waste collection vehicle, to improve the working environment for the waste collectors.
The idea came from the well-known vacuum collection system, which collects the waste through underground pipes to the specially designed vacuum truck. This solution however, is a quite expensive solution because you need specially designed containers, control units and underground pipes.
We wondered if it was possible to develop a new collection method which could use the best part of the vacuum method and yet be simpler and less expensive.
At a waste collection exhibition in Germany we saw a vacuum vehicle used in
the contracting industry designed to remove soil and debriefs from excavations, and this together with our experience from using vacuum to collect waste, planted the idea of a new type of vehicle.
We contacted our business partner Ove Koch in Jutland and he created the contact to MTS Saugbagger in Germany. A company who normally constructs suctions vehicles for soil.
The three companies together started a brain storm to create the new vehicle, and many ideas were tested.
Finally we ended up with a 4 axle Volvo FM12 chassis – with a total length of 12 meters and approximately 4 meters high – and a volume of 25 m3. The suction power is created from 2 huge fans at 220 KW creating an air flow of 36.000 m3/h.
The hydraulic arm carries a tube which is 400 mm wide – this to prevent the waste from getting stuck in the tube. The arm can reach up to 7 meters from the vehicle and suck up waste up to 3 meters under the surface from underground containers.
As soon as the vacuum truck arrives we will bring more pictures of the vehichle in the right mobile vacuum system surroundings. It is the first in the world of this kind.