Rheinmetall AG has won an order from a well-known American maker of turbochargers. During a contractual period of roughly four years, the Düsseldorf-based technology group will supply some 1.5 million newest generation turbo bypass valves.
The valves will be installed in the exhaust gas turbochargers or air ducts of vehicles with internal combustion or hybrid engines. Production at Rheinmetall’s plant in Neuss, Germany, starts in 2023; the contract runs until 2027.
Following a load change in a charged engine, turbo bypass valves keep the number of rotations per minute in the turbocharger constant, thus assuring that sufficient power is immediately available for acceleration. The 6th generation of solenoid valves just ordered – the Pierburg Turbo Bypass Valve Gen. 6 – is characterized by especially fast opening times, as well as low weight and small size. Because the new generation of solenoid valves that features these characteristics promotes turbocharger efficiency while simultaneously offering advantages in terms of installation space, multiple customers around the world want it now. In 2020, for instance, a major German carmaker ordered over 3.6 million valves for models destined for the European market.
Rheinmetall has been perfecting the technology for turbo bypass valves ever since 2005. Today, by a wide margin, it is the market leader in the segment. The company now has numerous customers worldwide for this product, including all the big international automakers and well-known producers of turbochargers. In the USA, too, nearly all the major car companies use turbo bypass valves from Rheinmetall. This is also true of China, where some forty manufacturers now rely on the valve.
