“Shadrinsk” is not a name that comes readily to mind when one thinks about the vehicle industry, but this small Siberian town is now home to the most advanced copper radiator and charge air cooler (CAC)–collectively known as “heat exchangers”—production facility in the world. As such, it may be on the leading edge of a trend back toward copper as the material of choice for heat exchanger components. Soldered copper units once dominated the heat exchanger business, but over the past two decades manufacturers moved en masse to lighter weight aluminum assemblies. The copper industry was slow to respond to the threat, but eventually the International Copper Association (ICA) developed a new manufacturing technology dubbed “CuproBraze” that it claims leapfrogs aluminum techniques. But with aluminum firmly ensconced among the world’s major vehicle makers, making inroads for CuproBraze has been an uphill slog. Now, government regulations promise to make the going a little less tough.

Stricter emissions regulations in the U.S. and European Union slated to kick in as early as 2004 (and cut emissions by nearly half) are forcing makers of large capacity diesel engines for Class 7 and 8 vehicles to improve volumetric efficiency for more complete combustion. This means a significant increase in inlet pressure and temperature (from an average of 190°C today to an estimated 246°C). At these higher temperatures, aluminum loses tensile strength and is weakened by repeated thermal cycling. “Aluminum is failing at the under hood temperatures now required by the U.S. EPA for Class 8 trucks,” says Garry Faulkner, technical manager for the Swedish copper company Outokumpu, which helped install the line in Shadrinsk. The answer to this problem proposed by aluminum heat exchanger makers is to add a pre-cooler unit that will keep the temperatures of the air or liquid at acceptable levels. ICA’s pitch is, “Why bother complicating the system with extra parts and cost when copper and brass heat exchangers can handle the temperatures with ease?” And because copper dissipates heat more quickly, the size of heat exchanger units can be reduced while maintaining the same cooling capacity.