Automobile factories, as a rule, make a body and fill it with everything necessary, turning by the end of the conveyor thread into a car.
So, in many respects its contents are on the conscience of numerous suppliers (in German - graduate students). There are more people working at allied enterprises than at the car factories themselves, and often parts are made on the same conveyor for competing machines.
Novelties and inventions also often appear precisely at suppliers who come up (sometimes to order, sometimes proactively) with the latest electronic systems, smart shock absorbers, active steering wheels. They do not always get fame? The graduates do not complain - the turnover is huge, and orders are guaranteed for many years to come: after all, when the model is removed from production, components will be in demand for a long time.
Who and how ensures the quality of the car? We visited the enterprises of the ZF concern (Tsanrad Factories), which combined the brands Zaks, Boge, Lemferder under its wing.
Mentally remove from the car body, motor and wheels. All that remains, perhaps, can be found on one of the conveyors of numerous ZF plants scattered around the world. And, frankly, it is difficult to recall the brand of car, passenger or truck, where at least a few parts of this company were not used. The same Sachs clutch was even produced for Moskvich, and today an agreement was signed on the creation of a joint venture with KamAZ.
GENTLEMEN, HIDE YOUR PICTURES
This sacramental phrase sounded whenever the doors of workshops and laboratories opened before us. Here, for example, a promising front suspension assembly (and for which car - a big secret!) Is shaking on an impressive unit size. Hydraulic cylinders tirelessly push and pull the wheel hubs, while also turning them left and right. But why are the tremors so messy? Data from a real section of a rather bumpy road is recorded on the stand computer.
Here in the box are the new levers for the Audi Peak Peaks and … Volkswagen Peak Peaks. It is written on the labels. But does such a Volkswagen exist? The answer is simple: "Know comments, sorry."
Excuse me, well, at least something can be removed for the magazine? Well, look at the truck clutch full-scale test bench. It turns out that in addition to simulating the loads with the help of electric motors rotating the flywheel, the coupling behavior is also studied in conditions as close as possible to real ones. In other words, it is mounted on a “native” diesel engine, but electric motors create a moment of resistance.
But the stand for a similar purpose for passenger cars was allowed to see only because of the glass - so that it was impossible to recognize the brand of the engine. Here we went even further: for the sake of clutch tests, we assembled the entire power unit plus the running gear - up to the wheel hubs. The most natural lever of the box is distorted by the robot’s hand, and his foot is pedaling. The program allows you to simulate the actions of both an experienced driver and a beginner - the clutch must withstand everything. "And what is the speed of inclusion is optimal from the point of view of the resource node?". It turned out - 0.25 s, keep in mind.
BREEMEN LIFEANTS
The enterprises "Lemferder" and "God" are located in the vicinity of Bremen. The large industrial and port center of Germany is more famous for its legendary musicians, and the path of numerous tourists lies in the old part of the city, where a bronze donkey, a dog, a cat and a rooster stand on top of each other. But the owl is from a completely different fairy tale, more precisely, from the biography of the father and son Ulderup, the founders of the Lemferder enterprise and admirers of the wisdom of this bird.
WITH
suspension hems, their levers and silent blocks, traction and stabilizers are born here. The customer (automobile company) issues requirements for the future suspension, the limit of its cost, the space reserved for installation. The design project, consisting of a mass of levers, hinges, springs, shock absorbers (and more recently, electronics), is being dealt with in the development center, which has two buildings - for cars and trucks. They do not spare money: every year 6% of the turnover is spent on research. As a result, know-how is born and completely new solutions appear.
The technologies for manufacturing parts are modern, and the methods for testing them are cruel. For example, heads with hinges are welded to rods … by friction. The process takes seconds and is not too impressive. But then at the test bench the finished product is torn in half … not at the weld! And the ball joints after 17 days in the salt fog chamber look like new, although, as they say, these days are equivalent to a couple of years of actual use.
INSTEAD OF EPILOGUE
“The King is played by the retinue” - this phrase came to mind after what he saw. If the retinue is not so hot, then the king will be “not very”. But when the car deserves the highest ratings, it’s not a sin to remember all the authors of success!
