A major automotive supplier requested 11th hour design/sealing help. They had only 4 months to be in production of a steering column that utilized an adaptive energy absorption system to adjust column collapsing based on the driver’s height and weight.
What started out as a dust cover seal that needed to burst open at about 15 psi, but not fragment into pieces, also became a low temperature impact dampening device (zinc housing was fracturing at -40°C) as well as a high speed pin capturing seal (10 gram pin traveling at about 600 mph). The Pin Stop Assembly is now an integral part of this driver-side protective safety system.
Working closely with the customer engineering team, prototypes were fabricated, tested, redesigned, revised and DV tested. IER Fujikura’s unique rubber formulation was key to meeting all the service requirements. Changes made to the rubber overmolded seal were made to solve other system test failures…zinc fracturing at -40°C, pin bouncing back from impact with plastic etc. Yet, the DV, PPAP and PV testing were all completed in time to meet 2005 model year start up dates.