Canadian Litens and ContiTech and Win Award; Novel Timing Belt Assembly Reduces Vibration

ContiTech Antriebssysteme GmbH, Hannover,Germany and the Canadian Litens Automotive Group, Woodbridge, Ontario, have substantially improved the service life of camshaft drives, and for this achievement the two companies have now received the Automechanika Innovation Award 2004. The jury selected six outstanding new developments from the 105 innovations that had been submitted from 12 countries. The main components of the new technology are a newly developed sprocket (Litens SmartSprocketTM/CTC) and a high-performance timing belt (CONTI HSN-POWER), which together act as a vibration damper system. This sprocket is slightly oval instead of round, giving rise to imbalanced forces with intentional force peaks in the timing drive. These forces are calculated such that they oppose the force peaks generated by the piston stroke. And according to the laws of physics, opposing forces offset each other to a certain extent. This reduction in vibrations is achieved only in conjunction with a timing belt with glass cord tension member and cover fabric, which functions as elastic component in the system. This technology reduces the forces that act on timing belts and engine components by 30 to 40 percent, so the width of the timing belt can reduced by 1/3. If the belt has the same width, its belt life is extended and it can be used for practically the entire lifetime of an engine without being replaced, even on high-load direct injection engines. The new technology will be used for the first time in TFSI engines from Audi and PDI engines from VW.