Federal-Mogul’s extensive portfolio goes beyond powertrain technology, including high-efficiency safety products, such as environmentally-friendly chassis components and brake friction materials, energy-efficient lighting, light-weight wipers and flexible fuel handling systems.
“Our strong and close-working relationships with engine designers in every region of the world give us excellent insight into the challenges they face as they strive to deliver more efficiency and performance with better environmental results,” explains Federal-Mogul President and Chief Executive Officer José Maria Alapont. “Every major vehicle manufacturer is committed to fuel efficiency, alternative energy and engine downsizing as a route to CO2 reduction, but it requires substantial and rapid improvements in metallurgy, tribology, materials formulation, as well as engineering and manufacturing process breakthroughs, where Federal-Mogul has substantial expertise, along with a rapidly increasing portfolio of innovative products.”
The new introduction is an aluminum piston that can reliably withstand the mechanical and thermal loads produced by heavily boosted engines. Called DuraBowl, the new technology eliminates the weak spot in the crown of the piston by locally re-melting the alloy around the bowl, significantly improving the fatigue strength of the aluminium where it is most needed. The result is an extension of piston life to between four and seven times that achieved with a conventional cast piston.
Federal-Mogul also is introducing new low-friction piston skirt technology, high-efficiency engine bearings that can reduce CO2 by 1-2g/km and new test systems, such as three-dimensional piston ring simulation analysis, that help to guarantee very high durability under increasingly demanding mechanical and thermal stresses.
Federal-Mogul pioneered the development of lead-free adaptive electrocoating technologies and continues to push the performance boundaries of engine bearings. Today, the company’s lead-free low-friction bearings contribute to its customers’ efforts to improve fuel efficiency by reducing lubrication requirements through a variety of geometric advances that provide significantly improved running surfaces. The performance of our materials allows significant downsizing of the shaft diameter, contributing up to 1-2 g/km CO2 reduction.
Reduction of friction at the sealing interface has been the primary focus of Federal-Mogul’s dynamic seal technology. Recently developed lay-down elastomer seals (patent pending) exhibit the lowest frictional drag among industry benchmark with 25-50% lower torque loss compared to competing technologies.
The global objective to improve fuel economy and reduce emissions is creating a divergence within the engine. Higher combustion efficiency and turbocharging are raising peak cylinder pressures, while weight reduction is dramatically reducing structural rigidity. For cylinder head gasket design, this means sealing higher pressures while absorbing considerable levels of dynamic motion. Federal-Mogul’s patented Flexstop unites a distinctive embossment system adjacent to the combustion opening with a high endurance material. This combination allows the head gasket to maintain a robust seal during extreme cases of cylinder head lift, cylinder liner sinkage and other engine dynamics, without seal failure, premature fatigue or engine damage.
Advanced combustion processes and increased boosting are driving exhaust system temperatures beyond the capability of traditional exhaust sealing solutions. Federal-Mogul anticipated this market need and developed High Temperature Alloy (HTA) and High Temperature Coating (HTC) solutions, a new class of sealing materials and coatings with superior thermal stability offering sealing capability up to 1000°C.
Federal-Mogul’s Nimbus GII heat shield is a distinctive product that combines the light weight characteristics of aluminum with a new interlocking construction to offer an efficient, formable heat shield for powertrain and vehicle thermal protection. Nimbus GII heat shield is 80% lighter than typical steel sandwich heat shields. Its specialized corrugation permits the shield to be formed into extremely complex shapes, using only a single stamping. This permits the shield to be packaged in the most crowded and demanding environments.
Looking beyond internal combustion engines, Federal-Mogul is already helping vehicle manufacturers solve the many problems associated with the development of all-new propulsion systems. The new liquid elastomer molding (LEM) gasket technology from its sealing technology portfolio provides a novel approach to sealing through the use of small engineered elastomeric sealing beads to help reduce the size and weight of the fuel cell stacks, enabling smaller fuel cell stacks and thereby assisting developers of fuel cells in their attempt to make commercially viable this alternative energy solution.
Moving further down the exhaust stream, a new thermal insulation technology, Thermflex 1224, is being launched to help keep catalytic converters working at their optimum temperature while also reducing the need for additional heat shielding of the exhaust pipe. Thermflex is a knitted sleeve, constructed with basalt yarns, developed for high temperature (750° C) exhaust systems. When installed on vehicle exhaust pipes, Thermflex prevents exhaust gases from losing their high temperature as they flow through the exhaust system.
Federal-Mogul is a US-based global supplier of a range of components, accessories and systems to the automotive, small engine, heavy-duty, marine, railroad, agricultural, off-road, aerospace and industrial, energy and transport markets.
