Engineering

A modern world without steel is hardly conceivable – but steel without CO₂ emissions is. These are the technologies to achieve change.

Almost a fourth of the energy consumed is lost to friction. It’s time to change that – with new surface technologies.

The most important passenger on board of the jumbo jet called SOFIA is a space telescope.

Farming feeds the world – and requires increasingly better and, above all, more efficient machines to do so.

As an innovation leader, Schaeffler is already researching the technologies of tomorrow together with universities, institutes, and research facilities.

Schaeffler’s intelligent mechatronic rear axle steering system ensures greater agility, driving comfort and safety with maximum energy efficiency.

15,000 square meters of footprint, 15 high-tech laboratories: Herzogenaurach will soon be home to “Schaeffler’s Central Laboratory”. “tomorrow” talked to Prof. Dr.-Ing. Tim Hosenfeldt.

On a fast track to becoming an economic superpower: with agile thinking and advanced technology, India might be ranking among the world’s top three economies by 2030.

Automaton, machine, robot, humanoid, android, cobot – no matter what names the artificial entertainers have been given, the foundations of this success story were laid as far back as 3,000 years ago.

Hybrid or all-electric systems are complementing or replacing conventional powertrains. Schaeffler has developed a modular e-axle kit enabling an extensive, universal product portfolio.

70 years ago, Dr.-Ing. E. h. Georg Schaeffler filed a patent application for the cage-guided needle roller bearing that has revolutionized bearing technology until today.

Friction is a decelerator. Who’d be in a better position to know this than bearing specialist Schaeffler? Weight and aerodynamic drag hamper the urge of moving forward as well.

Be it in cars, trains or airplanes, in systems ranging from hybrid to fully electric, mobility of the future requires electric motors. But how does an electric motor actually work?

The transformation toward e-mobility doesn’t stop at the gates of the spare parts market. Schaeffler Automotive Aftermarket is gearing up for the demands of tomorrow.

Downtimes are poison for business. The best strategy to prevent this is a smart early warning system. It’s called condition monitoring.

When business and science successfully work together, hands-on knowledge from the industrial world is combined with academic findings. But how do such university-business partnerships succeed?

Cobots, the smaller siblings of gross-motor industrial robots, are making a name for themselves. The specialists at Schaeffler have found a way to make them perform faster and with greater precision.

More than a hundred years ago, the moving assembly line changed the manufacturing process: an awesome success story – and one that could soon be ending.

Schaeffler’s success story is closely linked to its own production landscapes. Without the equipment from its in-house mechanical engineering department, Schaeffler’s plants would stop operating.

The future was never brighter and enthusiasm for technology never greater than during the brief period between the eve of the 20th century and the outbreak of the First World War.

Ideas need people who believe in them and make them reality. The four examples described illustrate how Schaeffler manages to transfer innovative stimuli into successful projects.

Before wind turbines are able to generate electricity at dizzying heights they have to complete an arduous journey. The transportation of wind power systems is packed with challenges.

London, Paris, Madrid – what sounds like the stops on a tour of a TV commercial for hairspray in the late 1980s may also at times be hairy routine for Christian Schuster.

No bearing would rotate without perfectly shaped steel spheres. A manufacturing technology feat whose beginnings date back more than 130 years – and that today ensures proper rotation.

No other artist and engineer who passed away a long time ago fascinates us as much as Leonardo da Vinci. However, innovation prowess was the result of very specific principles of success.

Physicists use particle accelerators to smash tiniest particles against each other in a quest for new answers to humanity’s big questions.

Are men interested in machines and women are not? Before this question provokes a public outcry, it’s worth taking a look at a few statistics and the changes that are currently taking place.

The 2016 Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded for the fundamentals of building complex nanomachines. Following the early eighties, this new field of research has since seen rapid development.

Twelve machines that have decisively driven the development of the world.

You can rarely see them, practically never hear them but whenever something is moving in the world, chances are that a bearing is involved. A time journey tracing the history of hidden talents.

They take us across rivers and valleys, connect city districts and cross other roads – whenever motion might be obstructed, bridges pave the way – like these prime examples of their kind.