Help a struggling university student out

Hi! I'm a trucker with 2 years reefer experience. From my experience, a 50 gallon fuel tank can last up to 4 days in the summer for frozen load with the latest version of carrier/thermo king unit. So back to your first question, the fuel consumption is really up to the difference between outside temperature and inside temperature. And It doesn't really matter whether it's long haul or local or parked.

My biggest hope as a trucker is that the reefer unit be quieter so that I and other truckers can sleep better.

I myself have an engineering degree too and I have been doing research on connecting the reefer unit and electric truck in order to increase range and efficiency. So that the reefer unit can run on electric tractor's battery and the tractor can also get charged by reefer unit when needed.

 

I will inquire with some higher ups to see if they have any reefer fuel studies I can share with you

 

I'm a mechanical engineer, and a former trucker. I only drove reefers one summer (ice distributor), so I wouldn't call myself an 'expert, but I DID have 7 years OTR experience as well as 2 years working as a night breakdown representative for a 48-state-and-Canada operation which had a LOT of reefers. As a breakdown rep, the one thing that was a big problem was finding people who could fix Carrier units at night anywhere outside of major cities.

As an OTR driver NOT driving a reefer, the one thing I wished more trailers would do was to move the reefer unit to underneath the trailer (like electric reefer container chassis do); they make less noise at night in truckstop parking that way!