MAHLE ORIGINAL – THE NEW EXPERT IN THE TURBOCHARGER MARKET.
The turbocharger is a key technology for reducing fuel consumption and CO2 emissions – and therefore for complying with the increasingly stricter exhaust gas standards. The market is developing accordingly: 90 million turbocharged vehicles are in use in Europe alone; experts in the sector expect this growth to continue in the coming years. MAHLE helps the aftermarket to explore this enormous potential: Original turbochargers from MAHLE will soon be available in trade and workshops worldwide.
TURBOCHARGERS – A RAPIDLY GROWING PRODUCT SEGMENT
The diesel engine owes its triumphant progress to the turbocharger. Thanks to turbocharging, diesel engines have achieved higher torque as well as responsive acceleration and are now well matched to petrol engines. Almost all diesel engines manufactured today in Europe, North America and Japan are equipped with turbochargers and in commercial vehicles over 3.5 tons this comes close to 100 %. The share of vehicles with turbochargers in Europe today is therefore already 41 % and is expected to rise to 63 % by 2018.
The turbocharger is also gaining more and more ground in petrol engines. Until recently, petrol engines operated predominantly as naturally aspirated engines, in which the air required for the combustion is drawn from the outside. However, this volume of air is not sufficient for modern downsizing concepts: The high power density of these engines requires a larger supply of airmass.
This is achieved with exhaust gas turbocharging: The air is pushed into the combustion chambers under high pressure by a compressor that is driven by a turbine rotating under the force of the exhaust gases. In contrast to the more familiar mechanical compressor, the turbocharger utilises the energy in the exhaust gas. This makes it possible to implement downsizing concepts that generate significantly higher power outputs from significantly smaller displacements – and offers reduced fuel consumption at the same time. In addition, the engines gain in torque or tractive power, which is perceived as an important criterion for vehicle performance by drivers. The combination of small displacement, direct injection and optimised valve timing make it possible to operate in ranges of high thermodynamic efficiency of the engine. This is noticed by motorists, above all, in lower fuel consumption figures.
Also trade and workshops benefit from these positive future prospects: Although the turbocharger is mechanically and functionally designed to match the service life of the engine – it is not immune to unpredictable external influences. Foreign particles entering the turbine, contaminated oil, insufficient oil supply or excessive exhaust gas temperatures during operation lead to turbocharger damage in practice and require its replacement. Especially in commercial vehicles, the turbocharger is increasingly replaced routinely as part of the relevant service schedule.
MAHLE TURBOCHARGERS – FURTHER DEVELOPED FOR THE AFTERMARKET
With the use of innovative materials, technologies and methods, for instance, new control mechanisms or combinations of different turbochargers, MAHLE intensifies the ongoing development process of turbocharger systems. Also turbochargers of older vehicle generations benefit from this, when they are further developed with the help of state of the art design methods and measurement techniques. The MAHLE engineers can resort here to many years of experience in the development and production of highly loaded turbocharger components for the original equipment market.
MAHLE Original turbochargers are produced on high-precision facilities in Germany and Austria, conforming to standards specified throughout the MAHLE Group. This ensures that all MAHLE Original turbochargers – irrespective of the manufacturing year of a particular engine application – represent state of the art technology.
A DEMAND ORIENTED PROGRAMME
The main emphasis of the MAHLE turbocharger programme has been concentrated initially on commercial vehicle applications – for instance, for Mercedes-Benz, MAN, Volvo and Scania. The product programme will be widened continuously and also complemented by passenger car applications, and by 2012 approximately 70% of all high traffic items will be covered. The broad programme comprises different sizes and types with a power range from 75 to 1,000 kW and assures the best match to the different requirements of passenger cars, commercial vehicles, construction and agricultural equipment as well as industrial engines.
 | Extremely charged: Also at more than 1,000 °C and at 320,000 min-1, the exhaust gas turbocharger must work perfectly. |