New wheel hub design cuts lorry fuel consumption

Spanish engineering firm Fersa has revealed a new wheel hub design that’s claimed to improve a vehicle’s fuel efficiency by more than 3%.

It has been devised to minimise rolling resistance in lorries without compromising durability, bringing new developments in metal surfacing and the lubricant used inside the hub.

“We have been working on the profiles, the roughness, the contacts of the rolling elements of all the metallic parts in order to reduce the friction during the operation,” explained Ignacio Miguel, technical manager for Fersa’s smart mobility unit.

“We have been testing this in our laboratory for extensive testing and we have seen dramatic improvements in friction, so we wanted to upscale this into a real application.

“The second [development] is the grease: we are not grease manufacturers, so we always work with partners in order to develop a low-friction version of the greases that usually are used in these applications. They work better in terms of friction consumption but they do not [suffer a penalty under the extreme pressures] they need to withstand these high loads that heavy-duty vehicles need.”

According to Fersa, using its low-friction hubs across a fleet of 100 lorries with trailers could bring a saving of €324,000 (£270,000) in fuel every year.

Miguel conceded that the hubs are significantly more expensive than the more conventional alternative but added that an operator would recoup the cost within two years.

The reduction in fuel consumption also brings a corresponding decrease in carbon emissions, he pointed out: “For every year every truck uses our bearings, it is [equivalent to] 100 trees of CO2 consumption.”

Although the new hub is currently offered solely for lorries, Miguel said that Fersa is developing a similar solution for light-duty vehicles, such as pick-up trucks, adding: “Light duty is our focus for this year.”

Fersa CEO Rafael Paniagua added: “This is just the beginning. We believe this technology has the potential to achieve even greater fuel savings.”