Body of Work

In pursuing the contradictory ultimate goals of achieving the lightest possible truck body with the highest possible payload rating and acceptable service life, OEMs and specialist suppliers alike employ an increasingly sophisticated set of tools, such as Finite Element Analysis (FEA), to design their body styles and have developed worksheets that help customers identify and select the best body for their business. [...] body design can't be an isolated engineering exercise in the overall truck design process; even though each pound removed from empty-vehicle weight may potentially represent another pound of payload, under actual operating conditions the payload volume, fill factor and distribution within the body can impose unexpected and often damaging stresses on the truck's frame and tires under everyday conditions.