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01/10/2007
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Small contributions to fuel savings are becoming increasingly attractive to OEMs as they endeavour to keep Europe’s environmental lobby happy, writes Roger Bishop.
The Schaeffler group’s INA brand has been subjecting a range of components to critical examination with some success. Following increasing interest in replacing plain bearings in the engine with lower-friction rolling bearings, experts in the Herzogenaurach-based company have now found a potential for savings in the camshaft supports.
“In principle it is easy to replace the traditional plain bearings of the camshafts with rolling bearings – in our case needle bearings,” says Dr Peter Solfrank. “We were able to save around 0.5% fuel consumption by exchanging six bearings in a vehicle with a twin overhead cam engine.”
He rejected any belief that ‘turning’ instead of ‘sliding’ had acoustic disadvantages and this has been confirmed in testing on a Fiat Stilo 1.4 litre twin overhead cam, four-cylinder gasoline engine (70kW).
Currently, he says, some projects are under way with vehicle-makers to fit rolling bearings to the crankshaft where bearing loads are much higher and the available design space limited. In addition, the increasing power densities need to be considered but Solfrank remains confident that, in the medium term, rolling bearings will be used here on the crankshaft.
Rolling bearings are already replacing plain bearings in mass balance shafts, especially at BMW where balance shafts in the BMW four-cylinder diesel engine are being equipped with needle roller bearings.
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Author
Roger Bishop
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