The announcement of the new Wabash composite refrigerated trailer generated quite the buzz at the CAMX show last month. Not only was the new design a finalist for the CAMX award but was also on the show floor for display. Key players behind the innovative technology include Structural Composites’ Scott Lewit, Wabash National’s sturcural engineering manager Andrzej Wylezinski, and Jeff Austad, national sales manager at MVP.
 
The biggest departure is in what Lewit refers to as CoCure Strain Tunable Resin, with unique qualities including higher elongation, toughness and increased long-term performance. This result is made possible by the low cost, commodity polyester resin and gel coat that can be mixed with polyurethane, ranging in volume from 1 to 6 percent, to achieve a customizable result, varying spatially across or through the thickness of the part.
 
To aid in the growth of a more cost effective resin, MVP is developing application machines with dual metering capabilities, with polyester and catalyst on one side and two-part polyurethane on the other. The result is a new, up to 25% lighter trailer design, which facilitates higher payloads.
 
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