Products and solutions Oct 24, 2006 9:02 AM
Medium-wide strip for innovative steel products
Erdrich Umformtechnik GmbH, a member of the Sander group, achieves weight savings of 35 percent in the production of brake pistons using medium-wide strip from Hoesch Hohenlimburg GmbH. The Sömmerda/Thuringia-based forming specialists use material from Hohenlimburg to produce the lightest components of their kind in the world.
Brake pistons are a part of the caliper on disc brakes and have the job of pressing the brake pads against the disc. They are moved hydraulically via an oil reservoir in the caliper, whose pressure is controlled by the brake pedal, control valves and pressure boosters. In extreme situations, i.e. during hard braking, brake pistons have to withstand pressures of several hundred bar and great heat without deforming. The demands made on the stiffness of the safety-relevant components are therefore high.
Traditionally, brake pistons are produced as castings. Erdrich's innovation is to make the parts from sheet steel by deep drawing. A new component shape and the right material ensure that the deep drawn parts are more than a third lighter but just as stiff as cast iron brake pistons. Erdrich has been so successful with this product that it has had to build an additional plant in Sömmerda to produce it.
The material for the new brake pistons is medium-wide strip from Hoesch Hohenlimburg GmbH. The company supplies this hot-rolled strip steel to customers in the automotive, engineering and rerolling industries, among others. Hoesch Hohenlimburg medium-wide strip is produced in widths up to 685 millimeters and thicknesses of 1.5 to 16 millimeters. It proved the number one choice for the brake pistons because of its particularly close thickness tolerances, similar to cold-rolled strip, and its uniform microstructure. Medium-wide strip also displays high surface quality.
Hoesch Hohenlimburg is part of the Processing business unit of ThyssenKrupp Steel AG. In fiscal year 2004/2005 the company achieved sales of nearly 680 million euros and employed around 1,600 people.
This press release is also to be found under www.thyssenkrupp-steel.de