Special O-rings for an automotive application
Our customer manufactures high performance oil and vacuum pump solutions. They approached our engineers with a new O-ring for their automotive application.
The application
Our customer required an FKM (Viton™) 60 shore O-ring to meet Porsche material specification PN707 Class 2 (Oil), Class 5 (Fuel/FAME mix) and Class 12 (Blowby gas).
This was a very cost sensitive project and the lead time required was very tight; especially as we did not have an existing grade in our materials portfolio to meet this specification.
High performance and tight timeframe - our material expertise
Our engineering team reviewed the application, and provided two material options. The first was a lower cost grade of FKM (Viton™) A grade. This met the Porsche specification in key characteristics. However, given the high performance requirements, we offered our customer another option.
The second material was a medium to higher cost FKM (Viton™) B grade. Viton B gives better chemical compatibility through its higher fluorine content, while also showing lower compression set. This is perfect for engine applications.
Our quotation for both materials included production tooling, PPAP Level 3 submission (with samples), testing programme for both material variants and a pre-production batch of O-rings. This was an urgent project, therefore we accommodated PPAP Level 3 grade O-rings for both materials to be manufactured from the same tool. To save time, material testing was conducted in tandem with the manufacture and preparation of the production tool. The results of the material testing supported the choice of compound used in the tool.
With material testing complete, the customer reviewed the results with Porsche. The decision to produce O-rings from the FKM B grade was made.
Customer satisfaction
By this stage of testing, production tooling was complete, allowing manufacture of PPAP 3 samples and the pre-production batch to commence. Pre-production O-rings were supplied to the customer in the promised 12-week lead time together with PPAP Level 3 and PPAP 3 samples.
See this link for more on our O-ring range and expertise: HERE