How to Cut Weight Without Sacrificing Strength in Heavy Vehicles

Heavy vehicles need to cut weight wherever they can - without compromising performance to get there. Fortunately, there’s an existing fix that combines strength and lighter weight parts for heavy duty vehicles like trucks, service vehicles, agricultural vehicles, and more: thermoforming.

Whether you’re trying to create lightweight, cost-effective parts for fire trucks, tractors, planes, or anything else, it’s important to prioritize both impressive strength and a lightweight build. We’ll show you how to cut weight without sacrificing strength in heavy vehicles using modern, high-tech solutions.

The Importance of Strong, Lightweight Vehicle Components

Sometimes, it’s impossible to choose strength over weight and vice versa. In certain use-cases, you simply need both. While heavy-duty vehicles are great in theory, they aren’t naturally speedy or agile—and that’s where the lightweight components come in.

Swapping out heavier parts for ultra-durable, lightweight materials can make a heavy vehicle:

• Move significantly faster
• Improve fuel efficiency
• Reduce wear and tear on tires, brakes, suspension, etc.
• Brake and accelerate faster
• Enhance handling and safety components
• Stay within weight limits

The best way to cut weight without sacrificing strength in heavy vehicles is using lightweight, thermoformed plastic parts. While this method can’t swap out every part, there are numerous situations where substituting lightweight parts is a great idea. 

Heavy Vehicles that Benefit from Lightweight, Thermoformed Plastic Parts

There are so many industries and types of vehicles that benefit from swapping out durable, lightweight parts for bulky, heavyweight ones. Thermoformed plastic works well in a variety of heavyweight vehicles, including:

Agricultural Vehicles

• Tractors
• Harvesters and combines
• Spreaders and sprayers
• Balers and forage equipment

Thermoformed plastic and other lightweight parts work incredibly well in the agriculture industry because it offers better fuel efficiency, easier in-field maintenance if something goes wrong, and less soil compaction.

Construction Vehicles

• Bulldozers and excavators
• Backhoes and skid steers
• Dump trucks

In construction vehicles, lightweight, durable parts made out of thermoformed plastic and other similar materials lead to a higher load capacity and greater stability.

Military Vehicles and Aircrafts

• Lightweight utilty vehicles
• Airplanes and aerospace 

Lightweight, durable vehicles and aircrafts are crucial in the military because stealth and speed are two huge factors. Vehicles need to be easy to airlift while also providing enough strength for protection.

Fire and Rescue Trucks

• Fire trucks
• ARFF (airport rescue firefighting vehicles)
• Wildland fire engines
• Rescue vehicles

Fire and rescue trucks need to be as lightweight as possible while still providing enough durability to navigate rough terrain on occasion. The more lightweight these vehicles are, the faster they are able to go and navigate better in times of crisis. On top of that, thermoplastics are known for their mechanical strength and prevent corrosion, impact, and heat.

Recreational Vehicles

• Off-road vehicles
• Snowmobiles
• Boats and jet skis

Recreational vehicles offer a huge market for thermoplastics because they are known for their speed and agility but need to be durable for a variety of rough off-roading activities in multiple seasons. Since plastic is resistant to rust and corrosion, it’s the ideal lightweight, durable alternative that allows high speeds and impressive handling in any season—while holding up against snow, mud, dirt, and more.

Sample Part Applications for Heavy Vehicles

Regardless of what heavy vehicle you’re searching for light, durable parts for, there are numerous options available. These are parts that frequently are great for plastic thermoforming:

Enhance Vehicle Strength While Reducing Weight

Swapping out heavier parts for lightweight, durable options can enhance your overall build and provide greater mobility, fuel efficiency, speed, and more. If you need a solution to reduce the weight of your vehicle builds, plastic thermoforming is a great option. Here at Industrial Custom Products, we can design and build parts according to your project needs and heavy vehicle requirements.

ICP understands the high degree of precision needed to create parts for vehicles that don’t only perform well under intense conditions – but also look good. We provide an alternative to costly tooling or injection molding solutions to hit that sweet spot of lower cost and higher performance.

Industrial Custom Products is a one-stop-shop for custom manufacturing and plastic fabrication, including: prototyping and product development, die cutting and dieless knife cutting, thermoforming and vacuum forming, large part thermoforming, CNC plastic routing, fabrication and assembly and drape forming.