Big Truck TV
Millions of gallons of corrosive chemicals are sprayed on the nation's highways every winter. While it's true they are an effective way to make roads safer to driver on during the winter months, it's also true that they are costing the trucking industry untold millions in shortened equipment life. Al Anderson, Dir. National Accounts at JOST Int. and Anita Byrne, OEM Sales Mgr. at Koneta Inc. recently took some time to share their insights into how carriers can most effectively deal with this important but often overlooked issue.
Are you optimistic that the industry will soon find a solution to this problem?
I'm not optimistic that the level of corrosion we are seeing today will decline if we continue at our current pace and we don't find ways to keep these chemicals off the vehicles. Unfortunately, we are not winning the battle to remove these corrosive materials either from the municipalities' arsenal or from the vehicles once they've been deposited on the vehicle.There are definitely some solutions coming on to the market today that can help. Of course surface preparation and new metal preparation at the time of vehicle manufacture, is helping some, as are some of the new coatings on the market today, but those solutions are expensive. But, again, we certainly aren't winning the battle and the question remains – are we even keeping up with it.
These solutions that you mention, what success are they having at curbing the level of corrosive agents reaching the trailers underside?
This technology has been able to reduce the level of spray in the air by approximately 40% over and above previously available technology. That reduction in spray results in cleaner vehicles and less corrosive material being deposited on the underside of the vehicle.
What can be done to prevent long term damage to the areas under the trailer that have been exposed to these corrosive chemicals?
Clear water is a great solution; wash your vehicles as often as possible. In some cases, the runoff from the chemicals being washed off the vehicle are resulting in hazardous waste, so we are also working to help carriers deal with that runoff in a responsible way. We are also looking for ways to mitigate the effects of the corrosive de-icing chemicals by limiting the amount that reaches the vehicle. There are products on the market today that can keep the splash, spray and mist down on the road and out of the hot zone, which is about 40 inches up off the road. That's what we consider the hot zone. These products help to keep the chemicals down on the road surface and off of the vehicles.One way to control the amount of corrosive spray reaching the vehicle is to control the spray cloud and keep it down, closer to the ground and underneath the vehicle. There are ways to control the airflow underneath the trailer of the vehicle and reduce the high of the hot zone. Previously, the best available technology involved deflecting the spray with splash guards and other accessories behind the wheels. What we have today is a technology that actually controls the airflow behind the tires and underneath the vehicle so that the spray drops to the ground rather than up onto the trailer and out onto the roadway.
Is the industry doing anything through group advocacy to attempt to stop municipalities from continuing to use these harmful and corrosive chemicals on the highways?
To prevent the corrosive effects of some of the chemicals being used on the roadways, the industry has come full circle. In the beginning, the industry tried to lobby against the use of these corrosive materials in their entirety, but we weren't winning that battle; we weren't even keeping up with that battle. So now we are advocating to the industry that they just learn to live with it, and work to educate them about the most effective preventative measures.
What are the chemicals that are the main corrosive culprits?
There are three basic chemicals in the environment today that municipalities use that have corrosive effects. There's sodium chloride (or salt) which has been the traditional tool of choice for decades, there's potassium chloride, which is a little bit more corrosive than sodium chloride, and then there's the one that's most widely used today, which is magnesium chloride. It's the magnesium chloride that more and more municipalities are putting on the road more as pre-emptive prevention rather than re-active prevention. It can be put on the road up to 72 hours prior to a forecast winter event (freezing rain, snow, ice) with the purpose of preventing the precipitation from sticking to the road's surface, thereby reducing the risk of snow or ice accumulation. The thought process by the municipalities is that this practice leads to safer roads and safer driving conditions in the event of a snow storm.
How big a problem to the trucking industry is equipment corrosion caused by de-icing chemicals?
In the trucking industry, corrosion is one of the most paramount issues that we deal with today. The reason for that is because vehicles will corrode and rust away long before their effective service life has expired. Corrosion is costing the trucking industry hundreds of millions of dollars per year, in terms of lost productivity, equipment degradation, labor to keep the vehicles clean, and all the other things that enter into corrosion.
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