Supaweigh handles heavy loads in Fujairah

Infrastructure and housing development in the Middle East is progressing at a phenomenal rate and with it the demand for quarry products is at an all-time high.

In the Arab emirate of Fujairah rock is being quarried and transported 24h a day throughout the region. Over 9,000 trucks, many loaded with over 100 tonnes, are leaving the local crushing plants every day.

In a notable example of forward thinking, the Fujairah municipality has constructed advanced monitoring and control stations across the region where all trucks are identified and weighed before travelling on the region’s roads. The control stations are multi-lane, to minimize traffic delays, and incorporate state-of-the-art vehicle-recognition and weighing products supplied by UK vehicle weighing specialists Central Weighing.

Drivers are issued with close-proximity cards which transmit a unique number to the weigh station as they enter, immediately downloading all driver, owner and vehicle details. The vehicles pass through the unmanned lane control barrier and over an ‘in-motion’ Supaweigh axle weighbridge, which records the individual axle weights together with the gross weight of the truck and transmits these, together with the identification data, to the control room.

The truck then enters any control room lane and the operator selects the appropriate truck from a drop-down display and completes the transaction with the input of a product code and crusher location. The weigh ticket is then produced. The whole process takes less than 3min allowing the driver to go swiftly on his way.

The data collected at each monitoring station is downloaded automatically every hour by landline and GSM modems to the municipality offices, where detailed reports are produced for each crushing plant, with a minimal charge invoice for the tonnage of products transported being produced automatically. The municipality therefore has instant on-line data for all vehicle movements and a clear picture of any potential problems before the vehicles venture on to the region’s roads.

The Supaweigh equipment supplied by Central Weighing was modified to cope with the extreme vehicle loads found in the region. Throughout most of Europe 44 tonnes is considered to be the maximum permitted load and 11.5 tonnes is the maximum permitted individual axle weight in many countries. This contrasts with the 110-tonne gross loads and 35-tonne individual axle loads found in the UAE region.

The small but heavy-duty Supaweigh platform is constructed to accommodate individual axle loads of up to 40 tonnes; with a six-axle vehicle, the system can therefore cope with loads of up to 240 tonnes – more than double the capacity of most conventional heavy-duty weighbridge platforms.

The operational speed achieved with Supaweigh has also allowed the municipality to reduce the number of weighing lanes from around 45 to 32, with consequent savings in both capital equipment and civil engineering costs.