Piezo injection technology receives the German Future Prize

For the development of the Piezo Injection technology for both diesel and gaso-line engines, Siemens AG together with the Robert Bosch GmbH received the 2005 German Future Award (Deutscher Zukunftspreis). The prize was awarded at the end of 2005 by the Federal President Horst Köhler in Berlin. The Witzen-mann group in Pforzheim, Germany, specialists in manufacturing flexible metal elements, contributed to this joint effort by developing a key component.

The Piezo technology makes it possible to precisely meter the amount of fuel being injected in the combustion chamber. This makes it possible to dramatically reduce consumption and emissions.

The key to this technology is a small, highly flexible miniature bellow, which encloses the actual Piezo element (a series of ordered Piezo crystals) and protects it from moisture. The miniature bellow also transmits the element’s extremely minute, very quick movements to the injector jet needle. In approximately six years of development, the Witzenmann engineers in close cooperation with Siemens developed a part that provides a performance spectrum which until now was unheard of. The bellows is set up for 200 bars of pressure, measures just 3 mm in diameter, and can transmit ex-tremely small movements in the exceptionally fast time of .2 milliseconds—that’s about 200 times faster than the blink of an eye. Made of rust-free stainless steal, it is constructed to withstand one billion load changes, which corresponds to an automo-tive life of approximately 250,000 kilometres. The quality standards for this key com-ponent are extremely high and the zero failure quote for this part is in the single digit ppm range (parts per million). The mini-bellow from Witzenmann is world-wide the first such part that meets all these requirements. 

About Witzenmann:
"Managing flexibility" is the competence claim of the Witzenmann group. In 1885, the jewellery manufacturer Heinrich Witzenmann of Pforzheim founded  the metal hose and expansion joint industry with his famous invention of the metal hose.
Today, the Witzenmann group is one of the world's leading manufacturers of flexible metallic components, such  as metal hoses, expansion joints, metal bellows and au-tomotive parts. In 2005, a total of 2.400 employees achieved a turnover of approxi-mately 270 million Euro.

For further information please contact:

Martin Schnaufer
Witzenmann GmbH
Östliche Karl-Friedrich Str. 134
75175 Pforzheim
Germany
Tel: +49 (0)7231 581-213
Fax: +49 (0)7231 581-802
E-mail: martin.schnaufer@witzenmann.com
Web: http://www.witzenmann.com