Driveline systems to meet every off-road need
World-class expertise in heavy duty mobility
Expert and detailed engineering test, analysis & validation
Upgrade your vehicle and extend life with our expert assessment services
Flexible business models
Date:21/03/2021
It’s hard to imagine a rescue and firefighting vehicle that has a limited ability to put out the fire and save lives. It’s even harder to think of any possible safety issues within the vehicle that is supposed to provide safety in the first place. This case study is about the ARFF - Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting – vehicle and how Timoney established new standards to level up its safety and performance.
Back in the day, ARFF used to have a dangerous and acceptable tendency to roll over. In 1978, it was Timoney that pioneered an Independent Suspension 8x8 with a rigid chassis to boost an overall ride and handling performance and most importantly – driver’s safety.
As the first company in the business that reinvented the vehicle with this solution, we are proud to highlight our proven history of over 40 years of experience in designing and delivering ARFF, chassis and driveline for the Fire industry.
To better understand our milestone, it’s time to have a look at how the ARFF was designed before. Its chassis has been flexible to a very high degree. The idea behind that flexibility boiled down to making sure that diagonally opposite wheels on either end of the vehicle would remain in contact with the ground when the other wheels were raised on 14-inch blocks.
The flexible chassis was here to address the case of wheels deflecting that much. However, the problem was that this degree of flexibility caused the chassis to roll without a driver knowing that. And that had a huge impact on overall vehicle safety.
This is where our cross-industry expertise came to the rescue. With years of experience in the defence sector under our belt, we discovered a way to replace a flexible chassis with a rigid chassis with increased wheel deflection. With this significant change, we ended up with enhanced handling, off-road mobility and traction.
This particular success story proves that we can meet even the most demanding tasks. With a backbone of experience in confronting challenging applications in defence, construction, fire, and motorsports industries, we can hone ride and handling performance in off-highway vehicles.
As world-class experts in those heavy vehicles’ dynamic behaviour, our approach is to deliver an out-of-the-box solution tailored to the specific case, where that is 4x4, 6x6 or 8x8 ARFF applications.
What are the key characteristics of a firefight and life-saving vehicle? It needs to be super reliable when it comes to ride and handling performance, it has to be comfortable to drive, and also – it has to be able to access any kind of terrain predictably.
With Timoney, you can make sure all the above factors are successfully covered. We can engineer our ARFF solution to incorporate the latest technologies such as EBS (Electronic Braking), RSC (Roll Stability Control), and RWS (Rear Wheel Steer) to help firefighters to get onsite and deliver water and foam and put out the fire.
Finally, Timoney can design a custom chassis including a power pack, chassis and driveline to meet the demanding specification and performance of the ARRF vehicle. Combining these chassis with our Independent Suspension can take overall vehicle ride and handling, safety and life-saving efficiency to the highest level.
