Every year, cars that have reached the end of their useful lives create between 8 and 9 million tonnes of waste in the European Union.
While car recycling has always occurred to some degree, recent years have seen manufacturers becoming increasingly involved in the process. This is because of increasing pressure from EU member states to ensure that any vehicles manufactured meet their end-of-life requirements to achieve recycling targets, which were set at 95% of vehicle weight last year.
One of the ways in which car parts are reused is through a process known as remanufacturing, which can occur in many sectors of the car manufacturing process. Remanufacturing is the rebuilding of a product to specifications of the original manufactured product using a combination of reused, repaired and new components.
Described as the ultimate form of recycling, remanufacturing protects the raw-material content, while maintaining much of the value added during the product’s manufacture. It has the potential to contribute significantly to a more sustainable future, and has already begun to increase the efficiency of materials by reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases.
While car engines today are designed to operate for many years and several hundred thousand miles in all imaginable conditions, when an engine fails it is common that the faulty unit is simply replaced with a new one. Saving engines from the scrapyard and reusing them could deliver a 50% reduction in CO2 emissions compared with producing new units, as well as requiring much less material.
The way to achieve that could be through the use of Plasma Transferred Wire Arc (PTWA) coating technology. This is a remanufacturing technique that is patented by Ford and being developed at its research and innovation centre in Aachen, Germany. While the process was originally developed to enhance performance models such as the new Ford Mustang Shelby GT 350R, the company has now decided to use it to remanufacture engines that might otherwise be scrapped.
The use of the technology began with Caterpillar and others in the diesel engine realm, to refurbish high-mileage or high-use engine blocks that would otherwise be very expensive to replace.
Recent impetus
Mark Silk is supervisor of powertrain products within Ford’s Customer Services Division in Europe, which is responsible for the PTWA technology. He explains the importance of the technology and why he thinks that engine remanufacturing is a significant development for Ford in its steps towards greater efficiency.
Silk explains that the engine remanufacturing industry hasn’t encountered many changes over the past 100 years because traditional techniques were prohibitively expensive and energy intensive, requiring cast-iron parts and intricate machining processes. “It is really only quite recently that the design of modern engines has driven us to look into new, more modern remanufacturing methods,” he says.
“Our PTWA technology removes the need for additional heavy parts, and the processed engine block has a new life as the base of a replacement engine.”
The idea behind the process is simple, explains Silk. Worn-out engines may have scratched, uneven surfaces that make them unusable, so Ford’s engineers can now coat them with an ultra-thin layer of new metal.
“After essentially filling in all the corroded areas, the engine’s surfaces are polished back to their usual circumference and size,” he says. “The surface is then a smooth, seamless mixture of both new and old metal – and the engine is ready to use again.”
Durability tested
In terms of the reliability of the remanufactured units, Ford claims to have taken strenuous durability tests with the equivalent of 250,000 miles of wear and, upon inspection, discovered that the initial hone patterns appeared brand new. “Using the remanufacturing technology on the engines makes them at least as good as new,” says Silk.
“We just completed a 1,200-hour durability test with the coating and it looks like brand-new cylinder bore. It’s a really efficient coating. Our principle is that remanufactured products are as good as new, so provide the same function, durability and quality as a new engine. You also get the full warranty with the remanufactured engine.”
The first remanufacturing programmes using PTWA are in production at Ford, and the technology is also being used on some relatively low-volume performance engines. “The plan is to use the technology for higher-volume production engines in the future,” explains Silk. “One benefit of using the technology in new engines would be deleting the need for casting liners into the aluminium material, acting as a weight reduction as well as providing friction reduction with the coating.”
Right now, the process may be more expensive than traditional remanufacturing, but Silk explains that it offers many benefits and has the potential to be used at an increasing pace. “In the traditional remanufacturing of engines, you cannot reuse the old blocks and have to keep on injecting new ones, but at a certain point in the future these new blocks may not be available any more,” he says. “The plasma technology enables us to reuse the old blocks so we can continue the remanufacturing process without having to rely on new parts.”
According to Silk, the process will also ensure that the manufacturer will be able to meet all forthcoming legislation for diesel and gasoline engines, delivering a 50% reduction in CO2 emissions compared with producing new engines, because much less material will be required.
And it is not just Ford that is using this technology. Nissan has announced that it is using PTWA for its GT-R. The manufacturer has chosen to use it on this high-end vehicle to improve friction surfaces and reduce weight by adding strength to parts made of lighter materials.
Smarter manufacturing
Moving forward, Silk believes that PTWA is going to be a key part of Ford’s sustainability plans for smart manufacturing. “I predict that we’re going to continue to use and develop the technology for other models down the line,” he says. “So far, the technology is pushing us in a direction of improved manufacturing processes and will continue to do so going forward.”
While the market for car parts in Europe is still dominated by new parts, remanufactured components such as engines are expected to gain a strong market relevance in the next few years.
The general feeling among automotive industry players and observers is that remanufacturing will continue to grow as it is driven by a need for lower costs and a movement towards a more sustainable future.
Sustainable use of resources
The network considers remanufacturing as an important part of a resource-efficient industry and a key strategy within the circular economy: by keeping components and their embodied material in use for longer, significant energy use and emissions to air and water can be avoided.
The European Remanufacturing Network estimates the size of Europe’s remanufacturing industry to be worth just under €30 billion and employing around 190,000 people.