Large investments in R & D – a continuous process - Scherdel GmbH

PRODUCTS
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING - TECHNOLOGY & PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT - NEWS AND INFORMATION
The top priority:
Resistance under
service conditions
With an annual production of up
to 200 million parts, a valve
spring in a modern car engine
must be of a constantly high
quality in order to be able to meet
the demands of the dynamics
and to ensure the durability required
by approx. a thousand
million cycles without breaking
and with a minimum of relaxation.
In the case of lorry engines, the
demands pertaining to durability
are similar. Here, although the
dynamic stress on the valve
spring is less, the factor of
mechanical wear presents a
challenge. Of course, in the case
of engine construction for lorries
too, the valve springs must be of
a constantly high quality, even in
the case of small or mediumsized
batches.
The requirement for a high resistance
under service conditions
is extremely important in the case
of applications such as shipbuilding
or for stationary engines as in
block-type thermal power stations:
here, a breakdown with the
accompanying downtime could
entail enormous costs.
Valve springs for motorbike engines
present a completely different
challenge. On account of the
high engine speed of over 14,000
r.p.m. dynamic effects are very
clearly noticeable. This requires
special production processes
which guarantee the reliability of
the component. These processes
are very often derived from the
even greater demands which
motor racing makes on valve
springs.
(jh)
Contact data
SCHERDEL
Scherdelstraße 2
D-95615 Marktredwitz
Germany
SCHERDEL valve springs –
In-house machine construction and expertise relati
Valve springs are optimized for every engine
S
ince the requirements for valve
springs vary in accordance with
their respective applications, at a very
early stage SCHERDEL began to construct
the necessary production equipment
with its own machinery division.
This machinery is individually designed
to suit the respective requirements of
the valve springs. In the course of time
each stage of the process (coiling, tempering,
grinding, deburring, shot peening,
colour marking, hot setting, onehundred-percent
inspection, preservation)
benefited from the extensive
knowledge of the spring specialists,
knowledge which was also used in the
design and construction of the relevant
machinery. This ensures that the special
requirements relating to the number
of pieces produced or technical parameters
are met. Another advantage of
the interdepartmental transfer of knowledge
from spring manufacture to the
construction of machinery consists in
the fact that, for example, special solutions
such as one hundred-percent
squareness control, measurement of
natural frequency or special identification
markings on a particular side of the
spring (over the whole surface or in the
form of a bar code) can be adapted to
suit the respective production line.
Thanks to the flexibility of its installations,
SCHERDEL can manufacture
valve springs of a constantly high quality
for all the requirements described.
Here it makes no difference whether
the requirement is just for small batches
or for 20 million pieces of a particular
item per year; whether, as in motor
racing, the valve springs just have to
survive for a few hours without a breakdown
or whether they have to ensure
that an engine functions for decades.
Scientific advisory service for
manufacturers of materials
In order to achieve the ambitious aim
of offering as wide a range as possible
in relation to product development, you
require not only outstanding production
technology but also an extensive knowledge
of the materials used. That's why
SCHERDEL's routine activities include
the provision of steel manufacturers
and wire drawers with suitable methods
of testing and a scientific advisory service
aimed at improving the quality of
the materials. As a result, the Group
has succeeded in obtaining releases for
international material suppliers from its
end-customers, on the one hand to ensure
more competition and on the other
to reduce the effects of exchange-rate
fluctuations when purchasing in the
global market.
4
Jürgen Hartmann
Tel. +49 9231 603-521
e-mail:
juergen.hartmann@scherdel.de