Freudenberg's N.H. site sets bar for oil seal testing

ASHLAND, N.H.—In an effort to offer customers one-stop shopping, Freudenberg-NOK Sealing Technologies has invested about $2 million in a dedicated engineering testing and validation center on the campus where its existing oil seal manufacturing facility is located.

Built from the ground up beginning in 2016, and opening in July in central New Hampshire along Lake Winnipesaukee, the 3,100-sq.-ft. testing center boasts 40 different state-of-the-art testing rigs that can measure pressure, temperature, frictional torque and speed capabilities, as well as changes in mechanical properties, leak detection and failure analysis in seals and sealing components.

"The center represents one of the largest investments in the market in the last 50 years," said Marcel Santos, global director of business development engineering services. "We were running out of capacity in Germany and decided to invest in Ashland (on the production side, which became operational in 1998)."

Thus far, the Ashland facilities produce and test only oil seals.

Freudenberg also offers testing and validation services to radial shaft seal customers through its Engineering Service Center in Weinheim, Germany. At 16,200 square feet, that center is the largest seal testing center in the world with more than 300 modern test rigs, according to Santos.

"While Freudenberg Sealing Technologies has long offered testing as an option to our customers, establishing a separate, dedicated engineering service unit takes product testing capabilities to a new level of sophistication and access," Santos said. "We can run 24 hours a day and have already developed and invested in the newest testing equipment available. Now, with engineering centers in both North America and Europe, we can handle customer service requests from any region."

The two Ashland facilities employ about 90 people overall, Santos said, with six of those people working in the new testing center.

With radial shaft seals used in seemingly unlimited industrial applications—from tiny seals for use in micro actuators on dental drills and surgical equipment to massive designs for 95-liter, 15-ton marine engines—Freudenberg's engineering service centers offer validation for complex and expensive sealing systems.

While Freudenberg spent about $1 million in new testing equipment and another $1 million on the Ashland building itself, the company already is seeing a return on its investment.

Besides the aforementioned analytics that can be measured, Santos said FST is receiving quite a few requests for shaft characterization analysis. In addition, the Ashland facility can test for thermal cycling, slurry (sand), hydraulic (both at the oil seal component level and the hydraulic motor), static measurements and vibration.

"Pretty much everything a customer requires we can test for," Santos said. "We've been in this industry over 100 years. We have seen everything, from the smallest to the largest seal systems."

And in every case, the more that testing can mimic reality, the more money and downtime a customer can save, Santos said.

For example, an agricultural tractor seal needs to operate in -40°F weather in a Canadian winter, as well as in 130°F weather in Dubai. Freudenberg is able to cover this temperature range at its Ashland facility.

In addition, a seal on a motorcycle that goes from 0 to 10,000 RPM in three seconds requires different testing than a tractor running at a much slower speed. And the environments are far different, as agricultural equipment tends to see dirty, grainy surroundings—which Freudenberg can mimic at Ashland with its slurry tests using Arizona sand, fine dust that is thrown at the oil seal during testing.

"We run everything. We run their protocols and we run our own protocols," Santos said.

Even competitors are coming to Freudenberg for testing, shutting down their own operations as they find it cheaper to farm out their seal and gasket analysis to Freudenberg.

In many ways, Freudenberg sets the industry standards for protocols.

"We are the largest producer of oil seals in the world, and as such, we are involved with most of the standards for performance," Santos said.

Freudenberg also can customize its testing and validation protocols, often the choice for a customer depending on their requirements.

"They are finding it is easier, faster and cheaper to contract with Freudenberg for their testing services. Some of our customers are our competitors," Santos said. "The seals are too complex, and they come to us to run a certain test. We have another type of business model, which is to service intermediate customers to bigger OEMs. They need to contract out their testing, and we sell that data back to them, which they in turn sell to their OEMs."

And Freudenberg is pushing equipment manufacturers to adapt as well, Santos said. Recently, a shaft characterization company came to Freudenberg to create technology to measure shaft roughness. "We developed the technology together, and we were the first company to buy from them," Santos said. "We are pushing this trend of pushing manufacturers across the board.

"With this engineering service center, we are putting the same focus on the analytical equipment. We are in the market to be the best, but we are not the cheapest. We are the Cadillac, BMW and Mercedes of seals and gaskets."

Moreover, the Ashland test center is positively reinforcing Freudenberg's bottom line, Santos said.

"Customers are coming to us with a competitor's seal and then gathering our analysis," he said. "Then we tell them what can be done better, and quote them on one of our products. Our customers trust in our performance and ability."

In spite of the downturn in automotive during the coronavirus pandemic, Freudenberg's diverse market portfolio has buoyed the company over the first two quarters of 2020.

"That is kind of the beauty of this, especially during the pandemic," Santos said. "We sell to every segment you can imagine. Even though auto took a major dive, our seals and gaskets are used in recreational equipment like motorcycles, boats, snowmobiles and trains, as well as in energy generators at hospitals, aircraft, helicopters, agricultural tractors and equipment and in construction.

"And pretty much every single one of those segment customers came back asking for more. Even auto is coming back."

Santos said the multi-million dollar expansion in Ashland is evidence of Freudenberg's overall philosophy that the only industry constant is change.

"Since 1929, our focus has been on sealing technologies. Now we have created a new business unit outside of production dedicated to testing services, providing value on the service side. Once our customers go to the prototype stage, they will know exactly how the seal works. Most of our competitors don't have this ability."

Established in 1989, Freudenberg-NOK is the Americas joint venture between Freudenberg in Germany and NOK Corp. in Japan. There are 10 divisions within Freudenberg-NOK Sealing Technologies, and the business has 20 manufacturing facilities in North America.