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GGB engineered bearings for HVAC compressors for BEV

Automotive HVAC Compressors

GGB's Engineered Solutions for BEV Compressors

With the electric vehicle market growing and more electric cars on the road than ever before, HVAC compressor design engineers are faced with unique challenges. 

GGB - Tribological Solutions

There is pressure to: 

  • Minimize development costs and time 
  • Noise and weight reductions 
  • Increase durability 
  • More and more stringent regulations to reduce CO2 emissions.  


Pressure to minimize development costs and time 

Development costs are rising significantly as designs are moving to larger-sized scroll and rotary compressors. Electric car batteries are big and heavy, and they make it incredibly difficult when attempting to find space and weight savings during the design process. Not only the thermal management of the cabin, from cooling to heating (the engine will not heat the cabin anymore) needs to be managed.  Also, the cooling of the engine and the batteries require engineered solutions.  Additionally, the batteries require either pre-heating or pre-cooling.  

Compliance with increasingly more stringent regulations  

The decarbonization of road transportis an essential target for :

  • China:  net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2060 
  • Europe: to reach zero-emission road mobility by 2035 (an EU fleet-wide target to reduce the emissions produced by new passenger cars and light vehicles by 100% compared to 2021).  
  • USA: President Biden recently announced a new target to achieve 50-52% reductions from 2005 levels in economy-wide net greenhouse gas pollution in 2030.  

This puts pressure on design engineers to increase efficiency of their compressors by reducing weight and size, as well as optimizing friction management and consequently increasing durability of their compressor.  

Noise reduction poses new challenges  

GGB - Tribological Solutions

Nowadays, with the increase of electrified vehicles and overall noise reduction, the noise inside the car cabin is more and more related to embedded components.  During the car development, also compressor suppliers are consequently asked by car manufacturers to reduce noise created by their compressor. Noise reduction has consequently become an important challenge in the design process of the compressor.  

Avoid shaft seizure by heat controlling 

The heat generation of the shaft is a critical point of any compressor. To prevent the risk of shaft seizure, the heat generation of the shaft must be controllable. 

Global post-COVID supply chain disruptions 

Multiple national lockdowns continue to slow or even temporarily stop the flow of raw materials and finished goods, disrupting manufacturing globally. In addition, many companies have laid off staff or lost employees due to COVID.  

Manufacturing companies are nowadays forced to reconsider their supply chains and become more resilient, collaborative and networked with their suppliers and consider localizing their supply chain to a certain degree which will help them also to reduce their CO2 footprint.  

The GGB Advantage 

Design engineers can partner with us early in the design phase to assure reliable, cost-effective solutions with shorter lead time. We commit to sharing our tribological expertise and friction management expertise. With many years of experience in industrial compressor applications and partnering with major global compressor manufacturers and millions of bearings shipped yearly with exponential growth rates for compressor bearings, the design engineer can rely on GGB solutions. This will allow you to develop an optimized compressor, avoid warranty claims and to stay ahead of competition in a rapidly changing world.

Advantages of GGB‘s Tribological Solutions

Excellent friction management 

GGB’s maintenance-free materials offer excellent low friction properties that absorb the impacts of high loads and increase durability.  

Reduced Noise, Vibration and Harshness (NVH) compared to roller bearings  

Plain bearings and polymer coatings solutions offer low NVH components compared to roller bearings and can significantly reduce size, weight, and absorb vibration.

Improved Coefficient of Performance  

Power loss for increased output and volumetric efficiency can be reduced even at low speed/high pressure conditions. The materials offer high temperature resistance to accommodate the continuous operation needed for heating and/or colling of batteries. 

Environmentally friendly materials (RoHS compliant) 

GGB offers a wide range of lead-free and grease-free surface materials that comply with RoHS directives as well as with the EU End of Life Vehicle (ELV) and the restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directives. Our solutions offer sustainability that can help reduce your carbon footprint, removing heavy bulky or greased materials, but can also replace hard chrome and NMP in new compressor designs.   

Global partner with local network 

By working with you at the very start of the design process, we can leverage our tribological expertise and in-house R&D capabilities to review and ensure that the bearing and surrounding components are the most cost-effective. 


GGB Surface Solutions for Compressors 

DTS10 – A bearing material that offers superior and stable performance for plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles as bearing loads have significantly increased due to the weight addition of the electric motor, electronics, and battery pack (industrial compressors, breakthrough for scroll compressors, combining the strength of bimetal, strength of roller bearings and properties of metal-polymer). 

GGB DTS10 bushing used in piston pump applications

DP31 – A Metal-Polymer bearing solution, the lead-free DP31 features excellent low friction and wear resistance performance in piston compressor applications.  

GGB DP31 lead-free piston compressor bushings

DP10 – A lead-free Metal-Polymer self-lubricating bearing solution that features low friction performance over a wide range of loads, speeds, and temperatures in dry running conditions, especially in the critical start phase.  

GGB DP10 lead-free bearings for compressors

TriboShield® – Able to be applied to nearly any surface, regardless of shape or material, TriboShield® polymer coatings are grease-free solutions that improve performance by reducing friction, increasing wear life, reducing system noise, and greatly improving corrosion resistance. Polymer coatings can be an effective, environmental-friendly solution to replace hard chrome, NMP and PTFS.  

GGB TriboShield eco-friendly Polymer Coatings

TriboMate® – These polymer coating solutions achieve low friction and reduced wear and can enhance the performance of other GGB products when paired either with another coating or with a GGB bearing material and can be an environmental-friendly solution to replace hard chrome, NMP and PFAS.  

GGB TriboMate Paired Coatings Solutions for reduced friction

 

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