Freudenberg-NOK ready to expand Levitex line

PLYMOUTH, Mich.—Freudenberg-NOK Sealing Technologies is investing to bring its Levitex line of seals to the automotive industry.

The firm has secured business to provide the seal to a major European-based original equipment automotive manufacturer for use on an engine for a global platform in 2017. To prepare for the increased business, Freudenberg-NOK will add production capacity to various North American sites to manufacture Levitex in the U.S.

The firm would not disclose the OEM, only that it anticipates growth with other major automotive OEMs in the future. Freudenberg-NOK has made a total capital investment of about $10 million in adapting the seal's design for the automotive industry and in the capacity expansion, which is set to come online in 2016 and create jobs.

Freudenberg-NOK still is examining which sites will see increased capacity.

This will be the first application for Levitex as a mass-produced radial crankshaft seal for the automotive market, said Luis Lorenzo, senior vice president for technology and innovation at Freudenberg-NOK. Part of the challenge was simplifying the design to make the seal more cost-effective for automotive OEMs, a process that he said started in 2011.

“We're pretty thrilled by the fact that the technology has been benchmarked and recognized as an enabler for emissions reduction, and we're moving forward to the market,” Lorenzo said.

EagleBurgmann, another company within the Freudenberg Group, initially developed the technology. Levitex consists of two rings; its primary ring interacts with a mating ring to form a cushion of air upon which the primary ring floats independently. Freudenberg-NOK claims air lubrication produces less friction than oil, reducing frictional losses to a minimum, thus lowering fuel consumption and adding durability.

“Basically what you have is two steel rings that aren't in touch with each other when the shaft is not rotating,” Lorenzo said. “You provide a static sealing when the shaft is not rotating. The two braces slide on top of each other when the shaft starts rotating, air pushes on a groove, and when enough pressure is generated, the air pressure pushes one of the braces off of the other.”

He said Freudenberg-NOK modified Levitex from its original configuration by simplifying the design, going from a sophisticated mechanism that utilizes an elastomeric bellow as a spring instead of a metallic one. The new version of Levitex is branded Generation Two.

“The design we have now is based on the same principle, but simpler,” Lorenzo said.

Right now the seal is produced in Europe, but Freudenberg-NOK will be bringing it to North America sometime in the future through investments for expanded production and equipment. Lorenzo said the firm is evaluating what locations will produce the seal, but Lorenzo said the responsibility likely will be shared among the oil seal, powertrain and driveline divisions. The firm is still figuring out the supply chain and where specific components will be produced.

He said the company will add significant manufacturing capacity for Levitex. The firm hopes to bring the seal to other regions eventually through multiple OEMs. Four major OEMs have done a significant amount of testing to validate Freudenberg-NOK's findings. Lorenzo said that once the seal hits the market, the firm is expecting orders to follow quickly.

“Since we've received the order, we've been setting up production lines for Levitex,” he said. “In the future, the technology will be produced here in North America.”

Freudenberg-NOK has invested resources into building up key knowledge in the areas of high performance plastics.

The firm is 18 months into a three-year program to develop a knowledge base regarding plastics such as polyamide-imides (PAI), polyimides (PI), polyether ether ketones (PEEK) and polyphthalamides (PPA). Lorenzo said the firm does not have core competency with regards to formulation, testing, modeling, testing of products and applications for these materials, and has been developing the necessary expertise in these critical areas.

The project is evaluating how to bring the cost of HPP by means that don't compromise the performance of the material into the applications, Freudenberg-NOK said.

“What we're doing now is looking at these types of materials and identifying the attributes of the raw materials and how those attributes need to be tailored to meet specific functional requirements,” Lorenzo said. “One of the things that we are invested in is developing formulations that allow us to hit a specific extreme requirement for applications.”

The firm said its HPP project likely will become a benchmark for how the company develops new material competencies in the future.

“We wanted to invest in a project to make significant advances to our internal know-how,” Lorenzo said. “We looked at different areas, not just the plastics that we need to make products, but different areas that we wanted to develop.”

Freudenberg-NOK is a joint venture between Freudenberg and Co. in Germany and NOK Corp. in Japan. The firm produces advanced sealing technologies for a variety of markets such as automotive, aerospace, construction and agriculture, among others.

Headquartered in Plymouth, the company operates more than 20 facilities in the Americas.