Towards the end of 2019 the Commercial Vehicle Body division at SB Components completed the first made to order body installation for Calor, the UK’s leading distributor of LPG. 

The bespoke gas transportation bodywork was built to match the unique specification of the Calor fleet. In addition, the design needed to be part of a Finite Element Analysis (FEA) assessment to verify that the bodywork would have the ability to retain the load in the event of an incident. In order to complete this we applied the ENXL approach of simulating an evenly distributed 50% of payload to front headboard and 40% of payload to side load retention bars, designing and simulating within Solidworks in order to prove no permanent deformation to the structure once the load had been applied.

The installation was not only important as our first in partnership with Calor, but as the bodywork was installed on a Fuso Canter 7c18e chassis cab, it was the first full Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) completed at SB Components.

The installation included a 1000kg column tail lift, a galvanized steel durbar overlay to the outside of the floor, multiple health and safety features including fire extinguisher, haz-chem boards, wheel chocks, load retention straps and bars, access and egress points and in cab telematics.