Freudenberg-NOK adopts high-temperature alloy material for automotive portfolio

Freudenberg-NOK Sealing Technologies’ (Freudenberg-NOK) diverse portfolio of customers and products has allowed it to cross-fertilize industries by developing a new automotive use from traditional aerospace materials.

The company now provides high temperature alloy (HTA) metal materials, originally developed and used by the aerospace industry, for use in its automotive stamped gaskets product division.

HTA, a family of alloys made from a high nickel content metal, possess extreme temperature and fatigue cracking resistance, which is well suited for the current trend of engine downsizing and forced induction used today to improve the performance of smaller engines.

Freudenberg-NOK’s material expertise allows it to explore innovative applications across product lines and industries. The company’s in-house research and testing functions further allow it to validate these applications on behalf of its customers.

“As a company working across many, diverse industries, we can borrow technology from one market and use it to innovate in another market,” said Charlie Spurrell, Lead Center Manager, Stamped Gaskets. “We saw the properties of HTA materials fit the needs of our automotive customers, so we were able to adapt the metals for our gaskets.”

“Companies have used similar HTA materials in the heavy duty industry due to the prevalence of turbocharging in high-torque producing diesel engines,” said Scott Anderson, Product Marketing Manager. “Adapting this technology to the automotive market made sense. Smaller engines are running at higher speeds for longer times, and as a consequence, more heat is generated in the engine bay and in the engines exhaust system specifically.”

Application of HTA materials provides functional benefits including improved formed heights, better corrosion resistance, higher strengths and longer fatigue life over traditional stainless steel materials.

“Our largest OEM customer for stamped gaskets is adopting its first HTA embossed metal gasket into a worldwide production launch starting this year,” Spurrell said. “The customer required a catalytic converter inlet gasket to undergo extended durability testing, three times the current standard, without any performance issues.”

An unusual property of this material, depending on the initial material condition, is the ability to become stronger over time and with heat exposure. This allows for reduced material thickness and embossment widths.

Materials, products and coatings can be tailored for specific application requirements of customers. The HTA gaskets are produced at Freudenberg-NOK’s Necedah, Wisconsin facility, where they are then shipped worldwide.