The ongoing development and ever greater acceptance of new drives which use electricity or hydrogen poses new challenges for automobile manufacturers. Suppliers and service providers who support established automobile manufacturers with their know-how are a crucial success factor for dealing with electromobility. Bertrandt AG provides its customers with test stands with climatic chambers to test high-voltage batteries from the module level and hybrid batteries to batteries for all-electric vehicles under various climatic and load conditions. The components are exposed to a wide variety of conditions in climate simulations or accelerated aging in fatigue tests. Bertrandt has successfully offered these industry-specific development services for over 40 years and is a globally operating company with around 13,000 employees and 57 locations. This year the company built one of the largest high-voltage battery test centers in Germany in Ehningen. Bertrandt has put its faith in temperature control technology from LAUDA to equip the new test chambers.

High-precision temperature control down to -40 °C

In addition, the company has ordered Process Cooling Units with volume flow control from LAUDA which meet the high demands of customers in the automotive sector. The units are used to control the temperature of test specimens inside a climatic chamber, such as HV storage devices, i.e. high-voltage batteries, which are used in electric cars as well as solar systems. The customer uses two large SUK 400W units for performance tests and ten additional SUK 350W units for endurance tests and simulation runs. The Process Cooling Units precisely control the temperature from -40 to 120 °C.

The special feature: LAUDA develops the refrigeration systems with a water/glycol mixture as the temperature control medium and a single-stage schema cooling circuit. By dispensing with a cascade refrigeration system, LAUDA can guarantee the future-proofing of the design with regard to the European F-Gas Regulation, since a refrigerant with a high GWP value is not required for the second stage. The refrigeration system must have sufficient power reserves, in order to be able to guarantee precise control even at limit temperatures around -40 °C. Each individual Process Cooling Unit must be precisely tailored, since water/glycol mixtures begin to freeze at temperatures around -45 °C (depending on the concentration).

Fully automatic filling facilitates test processes

LAUDA has equipped the Process Cooling Units with fully automatic filling and draining of the test specimen, in order to facilitate the testing processes of the customer in the automotive sector. This technology, which has been in LAUDA's product range for a long time, is now being requested by more and more customers and is becoming the industry standard, explains Manuel Faulhaber, Project Manager at LAUDA Heating and Cooling Systems. Since Bertrandt is a service provider which serves a wide variety of customers, the systems have also been designed with fully automatic filling and draining of the entire system. Bertrandt is therefore able to use a wide range of customer-specific temperature control media for its test procedures without cumbersome manual filling and draining - a massive time saving for the service provider.

LAUDA Heating and cooling systems, the plant construction division of the world leader in precise temperature control, specializes in the manufacture of individual solutions based on customer requirements. In this respect, the experts from LAUDA hold sway over a temperature range from -150 to 550 °C which is required for production facilities in the pharmaceutical industry or test stations in the automotive sector. The temperature control specialist has now designed and manufactured a heat transfer system for a long-standing customer, one of the biggest German chemical companies. This was also quite the exception for the experienced engineers at LAUDA.

The customer ordered a system which must reach a working temperature of 400 °C without any problems. The heater is used in the field of materials research, in so-called scale-up tests and for the preparation of reactions which make such a high temperature essential. "Heat transfer systems with a working temperature range up to 350 °C are part of the day-to-day business of LAUDA", says project manager Ralph Herbert. "The range up to 400 °C is in the premier class." However, this is increasingly in demand in the meantime, according to Ralph Herbert, because it allows more effective heat transfer, thereby enabling a higher throughput and optimization of temperature-relevant production processes. Depending on the requisite outflow temperature and application area, these heat transfer systems use various types of thermal oils (silicone oil or eutectic mixtures). Generally speaking, they are electrically heated and generate a temperature-controlled liquid flow which heats the customer application in turn. A cooling option via heat exchanger can be integrated depending on requirement.

In-depth technical expertise essential

The particular feature of the jump from 350 to 400 °C is that the engineers at LAUDA have to deal with significantly higher working pressures. The stainless steel reactors used on the application side also have to withstand a higher load. "The maximum pressure in the heat transfer fluid circuit in normal heat transfer systems with thermal oils is 6 bar, but it increases up to 21 bar in the 400 degree systems, depending on the thermal oil used", explains Ralph Herbert. This requires expertise in pipeline construction and the individual equipment components which not every manufacturer can offer.

LAUDA manufactures heat transfer systems in this high temperature range several times a year – whereby the planning and design are always especially important aspects for the LAUDA experts, confirms Ralph Herbert. The team of engineers at LAUDA is currently planning thermal oil systems with a maximum working temperature of up to 430 °C. The system was completed on schedule for the customer from the chemical industry, inspected and approved in the test bed at LAUDA and then commissioned on site together with the customer.

For the fourth time in a row since 2016, LAUDA DR. R. WOBSER GMBH & CO. KG has been appointed world market leader in the field of "Constant temperature equipment and systems for precise temperature control". The list of world market leaders is drawn up annually under the direction of the economist Prof. Dr. Christoph Müller from the renowned University of St. Gallen. The WirtschaftsWoche business magazine has been awarding this prize since 2016. LAUDA has been a member of the world market leader index since 2015.

»We are very proud to receive this award again,« explains Dr. Gunter Wobser, President and CEO of LAUDA. »The repeated confirmation of our achievements shows us that our two locations in Germany and our twelve foreign subsidiaries mean that we are excellently positioned internationally. By acquiring the laboratory equipment manufacturer GFL, we have further expanded our product range and strengthened our portfolio in the field of laboratory technology.« An important part of the innovation strategy of this family-owned company with around 510 employees is the consistent cooperation with innovative start-ups. LAUDA recently announced a cooperation agreement with ENER-IQ GmbH. The company is developing a data platform based on artificial intelligence to increase the efficiency of heating systems. Since the end of 2018, the company has also been working with a multi-award-winning start-up, watttron GmbH from Freital. Watttron develops and produces intelligent heating systems that enable point- and temperature-accurate heating.

The October issue of WirtschaftsWoche lists LAUDA as one of a total of 456 companies from various sectors that have been recognised as world market leaders – out of just under 14,000 companies with sales in excess of 50 million euros across Germany. In order to be allowed to hold the title of world market leader, a company must meet various criteria. Annual sales must be at least 50 million euros – 50 percent of which must be generated abroad on at least three continents. To determine the world market leader index, the scientists from St. Gallen only use official figures.