Conti publishes air spring benchmarking test results

ERJ staff report (DS)

Hannover, Germany -- ContiTech has published results of its own tests on air springs used in the truck and bus industry. Unsurprisingly, the results show that Conti products perform better than those of its rivals.

ContiTech said it benchmarked four of its own air spring models for trailer axles against four competitor products. "The service life of the other products tested was roughly 50 to 70 percent below that of ContiTech air springs," commented Hubertus Gawinski, head of R&D at ContiTech Air Spring Systems and in charge of the test.

In addition to mimicking service life, Conti looked at the rubber used and the embedded tensile members, checking for ozone resistance and cracking. Two-thirds of the non-ContiTech products displayed poor ozone resistance and more outer rubber cracking than the ContiTech products; a fourth scored far behind the ContiTech air springs, said the company.

The durability test yielded a broad spread in service life expectation among competitor products. ”In some cases, an air spring burst very quickly under normal load conditions, while another air spring of the same type managed to hold out through part of the maximum load test. This is a clear indication of poorly controlled production processes.” In everyday use this means that the product is likely to prove unreliable. Trucks risk unscheduled servicing stops at the workshop.

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Press release from Continental