Braided Tubing FITCOFLEX®

FITCOFLEX® braided tubing: New approvals

GREMCO has designed the versatile FITCOFLEX® braided tubing range for effective protection of hoses, tubes, and cables against extreme external influences. Designed in particular to provide abrasion protection, these sleeves are characterized by their low weight combined with excellent flexibility. Consequently, the sleeving can be used in a wide range of applications, from aerospace and automotive industries to the medical and environmental technology sectors. Braided sleeves are used widely to enable easy bundling within cable harness applications.

FITCOFLEX® braided tubing is ROHS and REACH compliant.

FITCOFLEX® braided tubing for automotive applications

The automotive sector represents one of the primary areas of application for our FITCOFLEX® braided tubing. Industry applications include fluid transfer systems, cable bundling, noise insulation, and rattle protection. To prove the quality of our FITCOFLEX® braided tubing and its suitability for use in the automotive sector, GREMCO has successfully conducted several demanding abrasion tests in cooperation with the leading independent testing laboratory SGS and consequently acquired the corresponding certifications.

Testing procedures and approvals

GREMCO focused initially on two OEM standards. These are used across the industry and are also adopted by other OEMs.

• PSA – S21-5101/A.
• RENAULT – 34-04-166.

These standards were chosen as numerous other OEMs base their standards on the aforementioned PSA and RENAULT standards and test methods. Both approvals are determined utilizing the same D441959 test method. Various wear tools are used to measure the abrasion properties of our FITCOFLEX® braided tubing by exerting strong frictional pressure on them. The wear tools used to provide varying levels of abrasion onto the sleeve with cast iron normally represent a minimum customer requirement up to the highly demanding Plastic Edge tool, which typically is the highest abrasion level request by automotive customers.

For PSA:

• Cast Iron Wear Tool = Category B
• Piano Wire Wear Tool = Category C
• Plastic Edge Wear Tool = Category D

For a successful certification, the braided tubing must withstand abrasion for 144,000 cycles.

For RENAULT:

• Cast Iron Wear Tool = Category C2
• Piano Wire Wear Tool = Category C3
• Plastic Edge Wear Tool = Category C4

To meet Renault’s requirements, the sleeving must endure abrasion wear for 288,000 cycles.

Being primarily requested, our FITCOFLEX® braided tubing has been tested according to the more demanding CAT C & D and CAT C3 & C4 levels. Upon test conclusion, the braid is examined and given a score from 0 to 5. Passing these tests requires a minimum score of 4. In order to avoid over-engineering / high-cost solutions, GREMCO has designed specific grades of FITCOFLEX to meet the specific abrasion levels. GREMCO was successful in meeting each of the PSA and Renault abrasion categories. Independent SGS test reports are available upon request.

General validity and further approvals

As mentioned, other OEMs base their abrasion standards on the PSA and RENAULT standard/test method. Accordingly, completion of these tests is accepted by other OEMs in the automotive sector. For example, Jaguar Land Rover conducted their own internal evaluation of our FITCOFLEX® braided tubing results. This assessment confirmed compliance with the abrasion requirements according to their STJLR-51-65 standard.

Currently, GREMCO is also collaborating with Ford to ensure compliance with the ESDG9A-8C147-AA requirement. However, at the current time, these tests have not been concluded. Even tho many other OEMs base their abrasion standards on the PSA and RENAULT standard/test methods, GREMCO is happy to approve our products also against other standards through our testing capabilities or other external, approved laboratories. As a customer, we kindly ask you to speak to our Sales Engineers in such cases, and we are happy to develop a tailor-made solution for you.