Methods and apparatus for slidingly mounting trailer skirt

1. A method of mounting a trailer skirt to a trailer, comprising:

attaching a skirt-supporting member to a trailer in a cantilevered configuration, and,

operably coupling a trailer skirt to the skirt-supporting member, the coupling being a sliding coupling between the trailer skirt and the skirt-supporting member permitting sliding of the trailer skirt relative to the skirt-supporting member when the trailer skirt bends, where the skirt-supporting member is an elongate bending member configured to elastically bend with application of a lateral force component.

2. The method of claim 1 , where the sliding coupling is achieved using a skirt channel configured to slidingly couple the skirt-supporting member to the trailer skirt.

3. The method of claim 2 , where the skirt channel is formed of a first skirt channel guide and a second skirt channel guide fixedly arranged along the trailer skirt, the first and second skirt channel guides being arranged to form an aperture through which the skirt-supporting member is slidingly arranged such that the skirt-supporting member is arranged between the first and second skirt channel guides.

4. The method of claim 2 , where the skirt channel provides a pair of grooves within which the skirt-supporting member translates as it slides relative to the skirt.

5. The method of claim 4 , where the pair of grooves is formed in the skirt channel.

6. The method of claim 4 , where the pair of grooves is formed between the skirt channel and the trailer skirt.

7. The method of claim 2 , where the skirt channel is fixedly attached to the trailer skirt.

8. The method of claim 1 , where the elongate bending member is a bi-modulus bending member including one or more elongate bending elements each having a cross-section extending in both a direction of a width and a height of the elongate bending element, where each of the bi-modulus bending member and each of the one or more elongate bending elements are configured to elastically buckle and bend to a buckled configuration when the lateral force component exceeds a threshold force and elastically return to an unbuckled configuration when the lateral force component is reduced below the threshold force.

9. The method of claim 1 , where the step of attaching is achieved by attaching a trailer mounting bracket to the trailer, the skirt-supporting member being operably attached to the trailer mounting bracket.

10. The method of claim 9 , where the step of attaching the skirt-supporting member to the trailer mounting bracket is achieved by arranging the skirt-supporting member within a resilient member formed of elastomeric material, where the skirt-supporting member extends into the resilient member and a pin is arranged to extend through both the resilient member and the skirt-supporting member.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising a step of operably fixing a portion of the trailer skirt to the trailer.

12. A trailer-skirt coupling apparatus comprising:

a trailer mounting bracket configured for mechanically coupling the apparatus to a trailer;

a skirt-supporting member operably attached to the trailer mounting bracket in a cantilevered configuration; and,

a skirt channel configured to slidingly couple the skirt-supporting member to a trailer skirt and thereby permit sliding of the trailer skirt relative to the skirt-supporting member when the trailer skirt bends.

13. The trailer-skirt coupling apparatus of claim 12 , where the skirt channel is formed of a first skirt channel guide and a second skirt channel guide fixedly arranged along the trailer skirt, the first and second skirt channel guides being arranged to form an aperture through which the skirt-supporting member is slidingly arranged such that the skirt-supporting member is arranged between the first and second skirt channel guides.

14. The trailer-skirt coupling apparatus of claim 12 , where the skirt channel provides a pair of grooves within which the skirt-supporting member translates as it slides relative to the skirt.

15. The trailer-skirt coupling apparatus of claim 14 , where the pair of grooves is formed in the skirt channel.

16. The trailer-skirt coupling apparatus of claim 14 , where the pair of grooves is formed between the skirt channel and the trailer skirt.

17. The trailer-skirt coupling apparatus of claim 12 , where the skirt channel is fixedly attached to the trailer skirt.

18. The trailer-skirt coupling apparatus of claim 12 , where the skirt-supporting member is an elongate member.

19. The trailer-skirt coupling apparatus of claim 18 , where the skirt-supporting member is an elongate bending member configured to elastically bend with application of a lateral force component.

20. The trailer-skirt coupling apparatus of claim 19 , where each elongate bending member has a non-linear cross-section, taken along a plane perpendicular to a lengthwise direction of the elongate bending member, where the cross-section forms a U-shaped or V-shaped cross-section having a flattened central peak.