Year 2010 will soon be over and it’s time to summarize what has been going on in the automotive sector. I have been travelling extensively mainly in Europe visiting various exhibitions and OEMs, consentrating on heavy-duty off-highway vehicles and discussing day-to-day matters and how the market sees the future development. Besides continuous need of higher fuel efficiency, increased life-span and user-friendliness, emission regulations are the hot spot at the moment. EPA Tier 4 Interim/EU Stage 3B low-emissions regulations begin to take effect in North America and the European Union in January 2011. These regulations require major reductions of particulate matter (PM), hydrocarbons (HC) and oxides of nitrogen (NOx). As we know, there are different techniques to achieve new values. Diesel particle filter system (DPF) can be used to reduce the amount of PM. The NOx value can be reduced by internal engine measures, such as with the aid of cooled exhaust gas feedback (EGR). One way to decrease the amount of noxious NOx emissions is to use Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR).

Engine manufacturer’s have selected diverse product strategies to tackle the matter, as there are pros and cons in each and every solution – as always with new technological approaches. SCR technology used typically with DPF provides a bit better fuel efficiency than EGR -based solution and less component stress due to increase of heat load towards engine cooling system is lower in comparison to EGR system. In addition, the consumption of Adblue is reasonably low: from 3-7 % that of diesel fuel depending on engine generation (the stricter the low-emission standards, the higher the amount consumed). From my experience I think that the SCR system is a good solution especially for On-Highway sector, but Off-Highway sector favours the use of EGR system.

First of all, the distribution network for AdBlue is easy to arrange for On-Highway vehicles, but construction and mining sites are typically far away from the urban area. The second argument which favours EGR is the sensitivity of AdBlue to extreme temperatures – both hot and cold conditions. AdBlue, consisting mainly of demineralized water, freezes if temperature falls below -11 C. Naturally, there is a heating system for the tanks and lines, but it starts operating after the startup of the vehicle. Considering hot conditions, the urea content of AdBlue can decrease if stored at temperatures in excess of 30°C, which means lower efficiency considering the reduction of NOx emissions. Further arguments favouring the use of EGR over SCR system especially in Off-highway markets are the simplicity of EGR over SCR and lower price of the EGR equipped engines. Some professionals are even speculating will there be any real fuel efficiency advantage at all, since AdBlue amount consumed is typically very close to the amount of fuel saved by an SCR system, meaning little or no nent reduction in overall fuel cost. Naturally, the price relationship is varying hand-in-hand with the price of AdBlue and diesel fuel.

Anyway, EPA Tier 4 final/EU Stage 4 will most likely demand integrating all current low-emission approaches: EGR, SCR and DPF, which in the end will lead to increased engine cooling demand.

Year 2011, we at CuproBraze Alliance want to continue to express that what ever the increased heat load will be, even up to 30%, will not be a problem for CuproBraze heat exchangers´ durability and thermal transfer rate. There is no need to increase the size of the cooling system when the same result can be achieved by changing base material to CuproBraze copper and brass. Our new years promise is to continue to serve our market according to Customers’ wishes.

On behalf of CuproBraze Alliance, Seasons Greetings and Prosperous New Year 2011!

Europe’s transportation system is facing a challenging situation according to estimates, freight will grow by 50 % and passenger transport by 35 % by 2020. This together with the fact of on-going global megatrend of urbanization, people move from country side to cities, means lots of challenges and possibilities for the whole transportation industry. Traffic problems are growing in line with the economic expansion and demographic evolution. Besides this, transport generates almost one third of all CO2 emissions. This was the big picture for this year´s most important railway exhibition Innotrans 2010, held in the city of Berlin. Exhibition gathered international group of visitors and professionals from the railway industry, and presented advanced solutions for vehicles, infrastructure, components and systems.

During the exhibition we learned, that the railroad sector has certainly it’s position as environmentally friendly and efficient means of transporation. Because we are used to travel by full-electric and hybrid trains, energy efficiency perspective is easy to understand. But for me it was a surprise, that when we compare land efficiency of urban area between passenger car, bus, tram and finally metro we get the following figures: number of people crossing a 3 to 5 metre-wide space in an hour in an urban environment for car is 2,000, for bus 9,000, for tram 22,000 and for metro 50,000.

CuproBraze Alliance did certainly the right decision when deciding to focus on railway sector during year 2010. During the fair there was lot of interest in CuproBraze technology, both in OE and refurbishment side. Life-cycle thinking in terms of durability, maintainability, repairability and recyclability supports the selection of CuproBraze heat exchangers for re-powering projects for diesel engines as well as for new projects of hybrid locomotives and full-electric locomotives. And even more, year 2012 will entail major changes to engine and aftertreatment technology. The reason is European Comission´s Non-Road Mobile Machinery Directive (NRMM) and it’s Stage 3B, launched just 3 years after the previous step 3A. While using technologies to reduce harmful CO2, NOx and PM emissions of new engines, the heat-load to engine cooling system increases dramatically. Up to +30 % additions have been witnessed. This calls for CuproBraze –technology.

Heartfelt thanks to all colleagues and visitors I had a pleasure to communicate with during these four days in Berlin!

CuproBraze Alliance will have a new exhibition booth at Innotrans in Berlin in the coming week. The booth will be manned by member companies like Seco/Warwick, Finnradiator, Umicore BrazeTec and Luvata. A good opportunity to drop by and discuss CuproBraze!

The booth number is 202 and it is located in Hall 20. See links to to Innotrans and CuproBraze products on the main page.

Later in the Autumn Alliance will attend MTZ in Mannheim. The Members Meeting next year will be hosted by Finnradiator in Suolahti, Finland.

Find more information under Resources/Upcoming events.

I had a great pleasure to participate fact finding tour to Zagreb on June 14 to 17 as a member of Foreign Trade Committee of Central Finland Chamber of Commerce. The beautiful city of Zagreb, situated in Northern part of Croatia, is a lively capital with 800 000 inhabitants. The economical potential of Croatia among many other countries of the Western Balkan region has been under the shadow of Yugoslav’s wars. NATO membership and European Union integration process keep the local politicians busy. This was learned while visiting institutions such as International Chamber of Commerce, Embassy of Finland, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration of Croatia. Effects of global economic crisis did not spare Croatia either. Year 2009 GDP was 45.38 Billion € with negative annual growth rate of -5.8 % and the estimated rate for year 2010 is 0.5 %. Furthermore, industrial production decreased by -9.3 %. Luckily Croatia is highly dependant on tourism which decreased only a little.

Automotive sector component production and the privatization of shipyards give potential for CuproBraze producers. Quoting Mr. Hubert Hödl, Vice President Marketing & Business Development of Magna International Inc., “We expect a recovery in our industry. Inside the 300 km circle around Zagreb there will be a production of one million cars per year until 2012. Besides this, Croatian based company DOG-ING has designed a three-seated electric car, ecologically acceptable vehicle to be used for city driving. The warranty period for the car, excluding a lead or lithium-iron-phosphate battery, is 5 years and the car will cost around 10,000 €. Following two hours of charging, the car will have 250 km driving distance.

Currently Croatia is the 2nd most developed country after Slovenia in the Western Balkan region. The core message by the politicians and representatives of the private sector during the visit was that, Croatia is searching foreign co-operation, especially in the form of Greenfield investments. As Croatia has excellent geostrategic location, well developed infrastructure and competitive productivity versus gross wage–ratio I have positive expectations that Croatia will establish its position as 28th EU member country either year 2012 or 13. In the future, Croatia will work for International companies as a spring board for market of 27 million people. Besides this, in case of EU membership there will be available massive amounts of structured cohesion funds for infrastructure, energy and environmental sectors.