Olivier Kloeckner of the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure welcomed the attendees. The group welcomed Andreas Schauer as Chairman and Stephan Belaen as Secretary of the informal working group. A tour de table has been done. For a list of attendees see file: ACDC-01-05e-Attendees.pdf

ACDC-01-05 | Participants list from the first ACDC informal group session

The agenda was adopted.

ACDC-01-01 | Provisional agenda for the first ACDC informal group session

Andreas Schauer reported on the 81th GRRF meeting held 1-5 February 2016. He explained the reasons for the split of the R55 and “R55A” for agricultural vehicles and he also clarified the requests from GRRF. (See file: ACDC-01-06e-Meeting Slides.pdf). The group mentioned that the results for the V-Value were not included. Andreas Schauer ensured that this issue will be checked.

The group was wondering who was invited for the ACDC meetings. Andreas Schauer mentioned that it was the whole former TFAC group. He asked everybody to let the secretariat know if there are other people to be invited too. The ToR and RoP were adopted.

ACDC-01-02 | Draft terms of reference and rules of procedure for the ACDC informal group

The group worked on the reduction of categories as requested by GRRF. The group deleted all subclasses and renamed the main classes accordingly so that the name includes the diameter (E.g. Category “a” became “a80”, subcategories a80-1,2,… were deleted). The definition of class “I” has been ameliorated and class “j” was added to include the drawbar eyes which are fitted to trailer drawbars for connecting to a tractor drawbar. The definition of the open category “S” has been ameliorated because the definition was too open (‘for example for special applications“ was deleted and a reference to international standards was added. The group asked CEMA to investigate which existing national and international standards exist. A discussion has been held on the possibility for truck couplings to be interchanged, but it was decided not to discuss the issue within the group but to discuss it at ISO level first, and to follow it up.

The group went through the document. A discussion has been held on “testing”, the group decided to discuss further the issue with the whole group. If no consensus is reached next meeting, a dedicated small group will be created. Another remaining point are the requirements for speed > 40km/h (test procedures, load presumptions, …). The group stressed that better/more figures and drawing should be added for each class of components. The group mentioned some other issues: table 4 (dimensions of standard flanges) should be ameliorated, resistance calculations are missing, there are no requirements for class “e”.

It was decided to circulate the document (ACDC-01-03e-Rev 1) and the group will be requested to
comment/ameliorate/add requirements using a common template (Comments-Template.xls). Answers should be given at the latest 2 weeks before the next meeting.

ACDC-01-03/Rev.1 | Proposal for a new Regulation No. 55-A on agricultural couplings Incorporating editorial changes from the first ACDC informal group meeting.

Next meeting is scheduled 25th of October in Munich.

A further meeting was scheduled 10 January, location not yet fixed.

All ACDC documents can be downloaded from the UNECE website. (An easy way is to enter in a search engine “UNECE ACDC”)

Andreas Schauer thanked the participants, the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure for hosting and closed the meeting.