Use case · Cargo space & vehicle
Axle loads follow from where each pallet sits in the cargo space and how much it weighs: every pallet shares its weight between the axles – or the kingpin and the trailer axle group – through a moment balance, and the vehicle’s unladen axle loads are added on top. JetPallet works this out from the load plan you have actually built, using real pallet positions, gross masses and the axle geometry you enter. If an axle exceeds your limit, balancing proposes a different arrangement.
Workflow
Plan your pallets and pass them on to vehicle planning with their real height including the pallet and their gross weight. The starting point can be a single-product pallet or a mixed order with delivery stops (mixed pallets and multi-drop).
Choose the model: a rigid truck with two supports, or an articulated vehicle with kingpin and one effective trailer axle group. Enter distances, unladen loads, the origin of the cargo space and, optionally, your limit for each axle.
JetPallet calculates the reaction at each axle from every loaded pallet. Where a pallet’s centre of gravity is missing, you see “input required” rather than a silently assumed value. You can opt into the carton-centre assumption explicitly; it stays labelled as such.
If an axle is over its limit, start balancing or move pallets yourself in the arrangement editor. Every change is fully checked before you accept it.
Export the axle CSV and the vehicle load plan as a PDF. The plan only shows the axle status when the assessment matches the current arrangement.
A truck can be well within its payload and still overload a single axle. Put the heavy pallets against the headboard of an articulated vehicle and the kingpin – and with it the tractor’s drive axle – carries most of the weight; put them at the rear and the trailer’s axle group takes more. On a multi-drop route the picture changes after every delivery.
In a spreadsheet that means measuring positions, working out lever arms and recalculating after every change. Mistakes tend to show up at the weighbridge. It makes more sense to tie the axle loads directly to the load plan, so every change in the arrangement is visible straight away.
What you end up with
In detail
01
The calculation uses the actual pallet positions and gross masses of each planned vehicle rather than an evenly spread load. The mass balance is checked: the sum of axle reactions must equal the load plus unladen weights. Pallets that do not fit stay visible as a remainder and carry no load.
02
Balancing searches for better arrangements – same input, same result – by swapping pallets or moving them to corner positions. The first goal is the smallest total excess over the limits, the second the highest utilisation. Each step passes the full vehicle check, and the result is never worse than where you started. If the search budget runs out, that does not prove no solution exists.
03
In the arrangement editor you drag pallets in a scaled plan view, snap them to edges or nudge them with the arrow keys in steps of 10 or 100 mm. With a complete axle binding you see the axle loads live. Applying the change is a single undo step.
04
The cheapest vehicle selection also takes axle loads into account where the centre of gravity is known. Without it, an excess is only flagged; with the setting “Reject axle exceedances without known centre of mass” the option is dropped instead.
05
If the arrangement, masses or inputs change after you applied the binding, the stored axle assessment is marked as out of date. The load plan PDF then states “Axle loads not assessed” instead of printing old numbers.
06
For the rear or trailer axle group you enter 1 to 3 axles, spacing, suspension, raised lift axles and a single-axle limit. With air suspension JetPallet splits the group load evenly as a labelled assumption; otherwise it uses your uneven-distribution factor as an upper bound. Each loaded axle gets its own row, and the assumption is also stated in the load-plan PDF.
Questions
With a moment balance: each pallet acts with its mass at its centre of gravity, and its load is shared between the two supports in inverse proportion to the distances. The unladen axle loads are added to these shares. JetPallet does this for every pallet in a planned arrangement at once.
Not by itself. You enter the limits for axles, axle group, single axle or kingpin. At the press of a button JetPallet fills in suggested values per Directive 96/53/EC; the wording has not been checked against the original, and nothing is set automatically. JetPallet compares the calculated values against your limits and reports any excess.
JetPallet asks for an input instead of quietly assuming the middle. You can choose the carton-centre assumption explicitly; it stays labelled in the result.
Yes. Alongside the rigid truck with two supports there is a model for articulated vehicles with kingpin and one effective trailer axle group.
Read on
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