Aircraft Grade Aluminium – The New Standard For Vehicle Drawers

Recent moves away from strong steel slides to lightweight aluminium profiles have been necessary to reduce vehicle payloads and increase corrosion resistance. This is particularly evident in the fire truck market, where increasing demand for space has lead to more drawers to store ever increasing amounts of specialist kit. More drawers mean more weight and that’s not acceptable to modern fire truck design. Add to this the desire to protect wet lockers from corrosion and aluminium slides appear to be the perfect solution for both issues.

Standard aluminum slides have a problem – They may be lightweight and corrosion resistant, but fitting 300kg (660Ibs) drawer loads on alloy tracks is not a good solution with point contact ball bearings. The hardened bearings will damage the ball races permanently and the slides will have a much reduced lifespan. That’s before you take into consideration shock and vibration from the truck at speeds, hitting speed humps or portable pump carriers dropped onto extended skids. Nylon bearings could be fitted, but that just moves the problem to the weaker material.

The design engineer will be well aware of these issues when selecting slides and many have opted for our unique Aluminium Radial Slides which use steel cross roller bearings or rods operating along a flat milled ball race. However, for those requiring a slide to fit into the same space profile than the steel ones were removed from, there’s now a product especially developed for modern fire truck design.

ULTIO 8027 Corrosion Resistant slides have ball bearings, cages and components manufactured from grade 304 stainless steel. This deals with the corrosion issue and lightens the vehicle considerably. The only option to retain load carrying capacities of steel, with a full service life, is to look to the aircraft industry and specify higher alloy grades fit for purpose.

The ULTIO 8027 slides are now manufactured from aircraft grade 7075-T6 as standard. Drilled and dimensioned to replace steel slides without compromise in load carrying capacities. Highly competitive pricing and short lead times – Now available to purchase on our ProMounts website.