Heraeus Sensor Technology supplies the world's leading companies in the automotive field with measurement probes in platinum thin-film technology developed specifically for the customer. The continually growing use of electronics is today the foundation for more reliability, better safety, improved environmental compatibility and continually increasing ride comfort. A large proportion of the developments in the vehicle field are based on the application of highly specialised sensors.
Heraeus Sensor Technology co-operates with its customers both as a dependable supplier as well as a development partner. Within the scope of this partnership many decisions are made in the course of the project in close consultation with the customers - from the product conception to stable, closely toleranced and cost-optimised large-scale production. Here, it is taken as a matter of course that our own wide knowledge base is employed in common development processes for the benefit of the customers.
The majority of Pt thin-film sensors in the vehicle are used the monitoring of critical temperatures or the control of processes.
Exhaust treatment
Various items of temperature information are needed in order to produce the optimum exhaust treatment, principally with diesel vehicles. For this application Heraeus Sensor Technology has developed special probes which cover the complete temperature range up to 1000°C. Apart from these measurements relating to the exhaust, the high-temperature sensors are also used for component protection (protection against overheating).
Engine oil condition
Depending on the load on an internal combustion engine, the same engine oil may be good for only 5,000 km or 40,000 km of distance travelled. A fundamental measurement quantity for assessing the oil condition is the temperature - and its variation with time. Many millions of Pt sensors from Heraeus Sensor Technology have been operating accurately, quickly and reliably in this application for years.
Component protection
Due to their reliability and accuracy, Pt temperature sensors from Heraeus Sensor Technology are used in various applications for the protection of vehicle components. The range extends from severely stressed measuring points, for example on the turbocharger, the monitoring of the oil temperature in automatic transmissions to safety tasks, such as with the burners on auxiliary heating.
With many millions of sensors annually, Heraeus Sensor Technology is contributing to the maintenance of the exhaust limits, to the reduction of consumption figures and to the operational safety of vehicles.
