Damper Valve

RAPA Damper Valves

Heart of the Damper in Semi-active Suspensions

Damper valve technology from RAPA maximizes damper performance and enables permanent damper adjustment in different driving and road conditions – for increased ride comfort and safety.Suceessfully used by German premium manufacturers.

RAPA – the best address for smart valve technology.

Benefits

  • Additional Comfort
  • Safety
  • Lxury and premium vehicles, as well as SUVs
  • Contribution to environmental protection, through reduced fuel consumption and therefore lower CO2 emissions

Product DescriptionKey-FeaturesTechnical DataProduction
Hydraulic proportional valve with pressure feedback for optimizing adaptive chassis damping in semi-active suspensions systems The valve system is the heart of every damper. The proportional valves required for continuous adjustment describe the top class of this genre. For this purpose, RAPA has developed an intelligent damper valve technology with two continuously adjustable control valves in the compression and rebound stages. These are responsible for regulating the damping force and operate as an adjustable hydraulic bypass in the shock absorber. This enables the damper to provide damping force adjustment according to the skyhook principle even in the high-frequency range of wheel vibrations. One valve controls the rebound damping, i.e. the force when the wheel rebounds, and the other controls the force in the compression damping. Within a few milliseconds, the control unit responsible for chassis control adjusts the damping forces individually for each wheel. This increases comfort for the occupants and stabilizes the body in the best possible way.The special design of the valve ensures proportional behavior of the damping force as a function of the set current. Internal recirculation of the pressure ensures pressure limitation even with highly dynamic excitations, which further enhances ride comfort.
  • Best in Class Solution for valve  map spreading
  • Directional Valve Technology
  • Lowest energy consuption
  • Customizable
  • Outstanding cost-benefit ratio
  • Control valve technology with lowest hysteresis and excellent response characteristics
  • Combined with valve internal pressure feedback for pressure limitation
  • High resolution of valve characteristic map
  • Harmonious course of the pressure vs. flow
  • Compact design
  • Available in NO (normally open) and NC (normally close) versions
  • Lowest leakage on the valve when closed by seat design
  • Niedrigster Druckverlust in geöffnetem Zustand
  • Suitable for underfloor use
  • Lowest energy consumption
  • 100% Duty Cycle
  • Long service life
  • Industrialized for high volume production
Production takes place in a new modern high-performance production hall at the Selb headquarters on five fully automatic production lines. Three more are planned. An essential part of the production is the fully automatic quality inspection of each individual valve. All lines are therefore equipped with EOL test benches as standard. Each valve undergoes a 100% test for the customer’s hydraulic requirements. This guarantees customers maximum safety as well as reliable and precisely fitting system parts.

Damper valve technology from RAPA optimizes damping technology in the chassis

RAPA Automotive develops and manufactures innovative valves with high performance and special characteristics for the high-end automotive market. The company is one
of the world’s leading suppliers of valve and valve system solutions for chassis components. Almost all of RAPA’s valves and systems are customised to meet the individual requirements of each OEM customer, in terms of weight, function, NVH behaviour, emissions and costs. The company’s strength in innovation is reflected in its R&D efforts, which represents 15% of RAPA’s workforce.

Insight into the damper valve serial production: Five fully automated production lines on which almost 7 million valves are produced per year.

RAPA damper control valves for permanent damper control

The diversity of roads and traffic situations require a wide range of vehicle damping characteristics. Adjustable shock absorbers are used more and more frequently in passenger car series production – the proportional valves required for continuous adjustment in rebound and compression describe the top class. RAPA offers with its high-end products a particularly good compromise between improved vehicle ride, handling, driving safety and agility. For this purpose, an intelligent damper valve technology with two continuously adjustable control valves in the compression and rebound stages has been developed. Compared with conventional adjustable dampers with only one external adjustment valve or with an internal adjustment valve, permanent damper regulation is thus achieved. With lower rebound force, comfort is increased. At a higher rebound force, handling is further improved, body structure vibrations are reduced, and no rolling or swaying movements occur even during compression.

RAPA’s damper valve technology significantly improves comfort. Premium vehicles and SUVs drive even more harmoniously. The variable, adaptive shock absorption, which reacts at all times to different driving situations and the condition of the road surface, also enables fuel savings and thus contributes to reducing CO2 emissions.

RAPA can offer its valves with maximum variability thanks to a modular valve system and the use of standard elements. This makes it possible to develop the best individual solution for each customer and bring it to market quickly. The customer receives all the functions he requires, such as a modification in which the valve is normally closed and has only an overpressure bypass.









Outsourced development center for top automakers

The complete process from pre-development to series test through to the finished product in series production takes place in-house at RAPA. RAPA Automotive acts as an external development center for its customers. The partnership is based on open, inter-active co-development concept, the customer is involved at all times in the open research, development and test phases and receives advice from engineer to engineer at every step.

In the first phase, project aim and requirements, core concepts and simulations are developed, calculations are made and basic research studies are undertaken. This is followed by life cycle, manufacturability and production process testing in the second phase. After each phase, an assessment is made as to whether the desired product performance can be implemented. As thorough as these development phases are, RAPA is nevertheless quick in product development in order to be able to quickly offer the customer the desired product ready for series production.




Testing, production and assembly at the highest level

At its headquarters in Selb (Bavaria), the RAPA Automotive division of RAPA
Group has 2,500 m² of laboratory and validation space space, filled with state-of-theart
measuring and testing technology. Here, every valve is subjected to a fully automated functional test at the end-of-line, during which the hydraulic properties are also measured. These measurements are much more accurate and eliminate any possible human error. This guarantees customers maximum safety as well as reliable and precisely fitting system parts.

Around 90 percent of all necessary testing and validation procedures are implemented in-house to meet the special requirements of the automotive industry. Complex sequences with combined loads in terms of temperature, service life, climate and environment can be run in-house. The data obtained, from all the tested components are stored and can be incorporated into computer simulation models and provides valuable insights even before the elaborate prototype construction process starts and can be used as references to results from newly tested prototype samples.

Material properties and product behavior is quickly available from the company’s own quality and testing laboratory records helping, the development and manufacturing process advance to series maturity, quicker and with a more “right first time” approach. In order to optimize the subjective driving experience and the chassis control, RAPA is an active participant in numerous OEM vehicle tests that tune the systems.

RAPA relies on comprehensive quality management and has all the necessary certifications of the automotive industry such as IATF 16949, ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and EMAS. In addition, RAPA is certified according to the VDA quality management standard.

Dominik Bergner, Production Manager and Production Team



Contacts

In case of questions feel free to contact us at any time! You may contact our representatives and colleagues in the U.S. and Germany as well as in China directly.

For further information and specific enquiries, please contact our sales team.