Oil
pans fitted in the 12.8 litre Euro 6 engines for the Mercedes Actros from
Daimler are up to 120 cm long, 40 cm wide and 35 cm deep. To date, they are the
largest engine oil pans for trucks to be made of polyamide 6 and 66. An oil pan
for the 12.8 litre engine holds 36 litres of oil and is made of the polyamide
66 Durethan AKV 35 H2. They are manufactured by Marbach-based BBP
Kunststoffwerk Marbach Baier GmbH using Durethan from Lanxess.
Lanxess
is a leading specialty chemicals company with sales of EUR 8.3 billion (Rs
70,129 crore approx) in 2013. The company is currently represented at 52
production sites worldwide. The core business of Lanxess is the development,
manufacturing and marketing of plastics, rubber, intermediates and specialty
chemicals.
Speaking
of the Indian prospective, Sushmita Datta - Business Unit Head (India), High
Performance Materials noted, “The commercial vehicle market is changing rapidly
in India, there is a visible difference in the technology used in the past to
those being used in the present. The commercial vehicles have evolved to be
more advanced in terms of technology, enhanced quality and performance.
Understanding the growth potential of the commercial vehicle industry, many
multinational companies like Volvo, Daimler, Scania, MAN etc., are very active
and taking the opportunity to tap the potential and establish their market
position in India. Such demand will certainly result in an increase in demand
for high performance materials and its applications for the commercial vehicle
sector."
“We used a series of calculations and
simulations to confirm the feasibility of the oil pans in advance, thus helping
to ensure that the pans could be designed on the computer properly and
cost-effectively over a relatively short development period,” explained Frank
Krause, a Lanxess expert for oil-carrying engine parts made of plastic, in a
media release.
In
this particular application, polyamide offers an alternative to aluminum, sheet
steel and sheet moulding compounds (SMC). It produces far lighter components
than die-cast aluminum, for example. What's more, polyamide components made
using injection moulding processes are ready for use straight away. In
contrast, die-cast and SMC parts often have to undergo laborious and costly
additional processing in order to remove burring, for example.
One
variant of the oil pan for the 12.8 litre engine is made of the heat-stabilised
polyamide 66 Durethan AKV 35 H2.0 filled with 35pc glass fibres, while the
other is manufactured using the corresponding polyamide 6 grade Durethan BKV 35
EF H2.0.
“In
the course of the joint development work, it transpired that polyamide 6, too,
is able to cope with the high demands made on these large components that are
exposed to a range of temperatures and pressures,” said Krause. Durethan BKV 35
EF H2.0 offers an additional advantage, as its glass fibres are less prominent
on the surface. This ensures a high degree of tightness in the groove areas and
improved removal from the mould.
During
the development of the oil pans, Lanxess provided its partners with
comprehensive support in the form of calculations and simulations. This
included structural optimisation to improve the acoustic behaviour of the pans,
and a simulation exercise to examine resistance to stone chippings and
deformation on exposure to sealing force. Simulations were also carried out for
the filling of the injection moulds and the distortion behaviour of the oil
pans.
“These
calculations helped us to ensure the moulds were filled evenly, particularly in
the flange area, thus minimizing distortion,” explained Krause. Other
investigations examined how the oil pans would behave if the entire engine
block, including the transmission, was removed and set down for maintenance
work or repairs. In this instance, the pans would have to bear a weight of
around 1.6 metric tons. Integral simulation was used to provide detailed
analysis of the directionality of the thermal expansion around the flanges
resulting from the varying fibre orientation in the component.
“We used this to derive measures to ensure the
tightness of the flange under all the potential temperatures and pressures,”
said Krause.
The
simulations and calculations conducted by Lanxess as part of the development of
the two engine oil pans are all part of HiAnt. “This brand incorporates all the
services received by our customers worldwide as part of the development of
innovative system solutions. HiAnt stands for our know-how in the development
of products, applications, processes and technology. This expertise is what
really sets us apart from many of our competitors,” concluded Krause.
Picture for representation purpose only/
Picture of Mercedes Actros vehicle, courtesy Daimler
Source: Lanxess