Case Study: 150-Ton Long-Deck Truck Scale for a Timber Processing Park in Zhangzhou
A timber industry park in Zhangzhou approached us with a fairly specific problem: their trucks hauling raw logs and lumber panels were long, and their existing scale deck wasn't long enough to weigh them in one pass. Loaded trucks routinely had to be weighed in two parts and manually totaled, which was slow and left room for calculation errors.
Project Overview
· Location: Timber processing park, Zhangzhou, Fujian, China
· Scale specifications: 3×20 meters, 150-ton capacity
· Contractor: Fangda Weighing (Fujian Fangda), truck scale manufacturer
· Scope: foundation design and construction, installation, calibration, ongoing maintenance
Sizing for long vehicles
Most of the park's traffic is semi-trailers and flatbeds hauling raw logs, typically 16-18 meters long. We built the deck at 20 meters to leave buffer space on both ends — enough that a truck stopping slightly off-position wouldn't throw off the reading. The 150-ton capacity was set by calculating a fully loaded log truck plus its own tare weight, with some margin added on top rather than designing right up to the theoretical max.
Foundation work
Timber yards see constant heavy vehicle traffic and lumber stacking, and the ground here was relatively soft as a result. Before construction, we ran a fresh geological survey and reinforced both the pit depth and the rebar layout beyond the standard spec. Curing time wasn't shortened either — the whole foundation phase took about 20 days.
Installation
Load cells were sealed, moisture-resistant units rated for outdoor use in wet climates, since this is an open-air site and Zhangzhou's rainy season runs long. The instrument enclosure got extra waterproofing as well. After installation, we ran staged calibration with certified test weights, then verified repeatedly against fully loaded trucks — readings held within national tolerance standards across every run.
Results after going live
The scale has been in operation since earlier this year. The park no longer needs to split loaded log trucks into two weighings and manually add them up — a single truck now clears the scale in about two to three minutes, down from seven or eight minutes under the old process. Monthly reconciliation of log volumes in and out is also noticeably more accurate and less labor-intensive than before.
