HONEYWELL TURBO BOOSTS AUDI TO LE MANS VICTORY

“As the race officials continue to adjust the rules to promote efficiency, we have been able to boost downsized engines with significant turbo innovations to help maintain or even improve overall lap times at Le Mans,” said Jeff Lotterman, Honeywell Turbo Technologies Motorsport and Advanced Technology manager. “When we won with Audi in 2006, we were working with a V12 engine. We’ve been able to help maintain that power output in a V6 and also enhance fuel economy which can make the difference in endurance racing.”
Honeywell snugly integrated its ground-breaking motorsports VNT turbo with variable internal geometry into the center “vee” of this year’s V6 diesel engine providing extreme space utilization efficiency and a new lighter-weight design to help keep the Audi’s center of gravity low. Honeywell’s experience with higher temperature gasoline engines and proven diesel VNT technology also allowed this customized racing turbo to consistently and reliably run at over 1000°C degrees without issue.
“Audi has now won this event 11 times since 2000 and always with the help of Honeywell Garrett turbochargers,” said Ulrich Baretzky, the head of Engine Development at Audi Sport. “The demands in developing the latest V6 TDI turbocharging concept were extreme, from general technology to thermal loads, chemical corrosion, bearing play, clearances, etc. These are exactly the technologies which Audi developed together with its long-standing turbo partner Honeywell.”
Honeywell’s motorsport activities provide real-world validation for its turbo technology portfolio. Its collaboration with Audi Sport led to the first Audi Le Mans victory in 2000 and a follow-up 2001 victory with the combination of turbocharging and gasoline direct injection, which is standard in production vehicles today. In 2006, Audi and Honeywell shared the first Le Mans victory of a diesel-powered race car and then claimed the first winning race car with variable turbine geometry in 2010.
“We use motorsports as a means of both developing and validating our technologies,” said Honeywell Turbo Technologies Advanced Technology and Innovation Vice President Gavin Donkin. “Honeywell has developed and sold VNT turbos for high volume passenger and commercial vehicles for years, but to adopt them to the intense performance needs demanded by Le Mans gives us an opportunity to develop the next generation of these technologies.”
Engine downsizing and turbocharging for passenger vehicles continues to grow rapidly around the world as manufacturers and regulators look to increase fuel economy, lower emissions and maintain fun-to-drive vehicles. The global auto industry is expected to grow more than 20 percent from 2012 to 2016, and global turbo penetration is expected to grow from 30 to 40 percent by 2017, increasing volume by more than 50 percent. In the United States, this reflects growth from about 10 percent penetration today to roughly 22 percent by 2017.