Requirement: Permanence and esthetics
With a power of up to 500 HP, the Panamera is the Porsche among the four-doored Premium-Gran Turismo. Such high-performance vehicles present special challenges when it comes to engine mounts. For this innovative automobile, Porsche selected an equally novel material solution. Since the stabilizer is visible when the hood is open, ContiTech Vibration Control worked in close cooperation with Porsche’s design department to give it a visually appealing textured surface.
“The stabilizer has to bear high loads but must also work as a visible part and therefore has to fulfill aesthetic requirements. ContiTech Vibration Control thus built a special mold for the part to achieve an optically high-quality surface”, explains Stefan Wöhler, responsible for product development at ContiTech Vibration Control.
No prototypes: Developed on the computer from concept to series
From the very beginning, the component was designed almost entirely on the computer in BASF’s polyamide Ultramid with the aid of BASF’s universally applicable ULTRASIM™ simulation package. “As material specialists and development partner BASF thus supports its customers with a field-tested simulation technology that includes numerous newly developed elements”, comments Bernhard Aumer, ULTRASIM expert from BASF’s Engineering Plastics.
The challenge was to satisfy the criteria for a certain functionality and load-bearing capability within specified spatial constraints. After a few iterations, BASF had a component concept that ContiTech Vibration Control, the system supplier responsible for the entire integrated elastomeric mount, was able to convert directly into a construction near to series quality. No additional testing of prototypes was required and optimization cycles were reduced to a minimum, which translates into enormous time and cost savings in automobile development. Test bench trials at ContiTech Vibration Control and vehicle trials at Porsche confirmed the results.