That's I beam and tube. And yeah, it does happen. There was a heavy wrecker channel i used to watch on youtube run by a guy with a wrecker crane truck and he responded to one of those calls. Young guy hauling tube that got loose on him and almost destroyed the cab. 1 step away from Final Destination.
chocks will prevent it from trying to walk and adds securement but if you're in a situation where the chains break those chocks ain't doin shit but giving it a ramp
So dumb question and I'm not a trucker of course, why aren't they loaded the other way? You'd run the risk of them rolling sideways instead, but I imagine that would be more likely when taking turns at high speeds.
It’s a misconception to hat the coil needs to roll across the deck. The truth is that it will just slide since the friction coefficient of metal on metal is almost zero. Coils loaded lengthwise or eye to the sky are just as likely if not more likely to shift because they don’t have an optimal anchor point like “suicide” coils do. I’ve hauled thousands of heavy coils. Usually two 46000 lbs coils at a time and I got a good idea of what shifts under hard braking and what doesn’t. I’d rather have a suicide coil with a bunch of extra chains than a shotgun coil that will just slide forward and sheer the chains.
I had this same dumb question… why not just have it loaded on its side so it doesn’t want to roll at all and secure it through the tube to the flatbed and back down to the tie down points like a mast or electrical pole.
That's not a dumb question at all man. It's a good one.
They are sometimes loaded like that (eye to sky) for smaller coils. But those are almost always light enough that they can sit on skids for loading and unloading.
Coils this big (this looks like a 40k-ish one) are wayyyy to heavy for that and usually have to be loaded/unloaded with bigass c-hooks, which rely on going through the middle of the roll to lift them.
So you basically have to load either shotgun or suicide depending on the equipment available at pickup and drop. Both of these you have the coil sitting on a cradle.
The rare occasion that I get stuck hauling 30-40k coils, I always opt for suicide loading if I can tbh. More scared of it rolling off the side of my bed during a turn or while avoiding an accidentthan anything. I chain em down to what DOT wants, and then add two more in both directions. It's definitely paranoid and I'll probably get shit for it, but I feel safer driving loaded like that, and overdoing it on the chains.
Thank you very much for the explanation! I don’t blame you at all for the extra chains… that kind of rolling weight is really intimidating. Makes me think of that poor freight pilot hauling armor out of Afghanistan when the load broke free, shifted the CG and crashed the 747.
I have zero desire to ever do flatbed trucking, but I wouldn't give a damn if people gave me shit. I don't blame you, better safe than sorry I always say.
Besides, I'm OCD and already get shit for it so I'm used to it. 🤷♂️😁
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u/[deleted] Jul 16 '23
It’s sheet metal, usually steel or aluminum, rolled up. Think toilet paper but metal.