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The objective of this study was to investigate the change of relative local velocity in each pulley groove at sliding between the belt and pulleys for a metal-pushing V-belt type CVT where micro elastic slips were inevitably accompanied to transmit power, while the transmissions were widely adopted to provide comfortable driving by continuously automatically adjusting the speed ratio. Local changes of wrapping radial position and velocity of the belt in each pulley groove of the CVT were simultaneously measured by a potentiometer with a spinning roller in the experiments. The mechanical power generated by the AC motor was transmitted through the CVT unit from the driving axis to the driven axis as usual under practical conditions while the speed ratio was set to 1.0. Pulley clamping force was applied by oil pressure.

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation is widely used in the development and validation of automotive engine performance. In engine simulation, spray breakup submodels are important because spray atomization has a significant influence on mixture formation and the combustion process. However, no breakup models have been developed for the fuel spray with plate-type multi-hole nozzle installed in port fuel injection spark ignition (SI) engines. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to simulate spray formation in port fuel injection precisely. The authors proposed the heterogeneous sheet breakup model for gasoline spray injected from plate type multi-hole nozzle. The novel breakup model was developed by clarifying the phenomenological mechanism of the spray atomization process. In this paper, this model was improved in dispersion characteristics and evaluated by the comparison of the model calculation results with experimental data.

In this study, the authors analyze the concentration distribution of an evaporative spray mixture with LIEF (Laser induced exciplex fluorescence) method, which is a type of optical measurement. LIEF method is one of the optical measurements for obtaining the spray concentration distribution for separating vapor/liquid phases based on the fluorescence characteristics. In this paper, a quantitative concentration distribution analysis method for wall impingement spray in heterogeneous temperature field has been proposed. Then, a series of experiments were performed in varying injection pressure and ambient density. As a result, a two-dimensional concentration distribution was obtained for the free spray and wall impingement spray.

Fuel design concept has been proposed for low emission and combustion control in engine systems. In this concept, the multicomponent fuels, which are mixed with a high volatility fuel (gasoline or gaseous fuel components) and a low volatility fuel (gas oil or fuel oil components), are used for artificial control of fuel properties. In addition, these multicomponent fuels can easily lead to flash boiling which promote atomization and vaporization in the spray process. In order to understand atomization and vaporization process of multicomponent fuels in detail, the model for flash boiling spray of multicomponent fuel have been constructed and implemented into KIVA3V rel.2. This model considers the detailed physical properties and evaporation process of multicomponent fuel and the bubble nucleation, growth and disruption in a nozzle orifice and injected fuel droplets.

In previous study, the model for flash-boiling spray of multicomponent fuel was constructed and was implemented into KIVA code. This model considered the detailed physical properties and evaporation process of multicomponent fuel and the bubble nucleation, growth and disruption in a nozzle orifice and injected fuel droplets. These numerical results using this model were compared with experimental data which were obtained in the previous study using a constant volume vessel. The spray characteristics from numerical simulation qualitatively showed good agreement with the experimental results. Especially, it was confirmed from both the numerical and experimental data that flash-boiling effectively accelerated the atomization and vaporization of fuel droplets. However, in this previous study, injection pressure was very low (up to 15 MPa), and the spray characteristics of high pressure injection could not be analyzed.

We have proposed the application of EGR gas dissolved fuel which might improve spray atomization through effervescent atomization instead of high injection pressure. In this paper, the purpose is to evaluate the influence of the application of CO2 gas dissolved fuel on the combustion characteristics and emissions inside the single cylinder, direct injection diesel engine. As a result, by use of the fuel, smoke was reduced by about 50 to 70%. The amount of NOx was reduced at IMEP=0.3 MPa, but it was increased at IMEP=0.9 MPa.

Dual mass flywheel (DMF) is a well-known isolation system for vehicle drivetrain. DMF has two typical elastic energy storage systems: long travel arc springs and in-series spring units (including two or more springs) and sliding shoes connected in series. DMF has such complex nonlinear characteristics as torque-dependent torsional stiffness and rotational speed-dependent hysteresis friction due to its dependency of centrifugal force that is applied to components and radial force of springs. Because of this complexity, sub-harmonic vibration (SHV) may occur under certain circumstances, such as under light-load and high-rotational conditions. In general, since SHV’s frequency is 1/2 or 1/3 of the engine’s combustion frequency and may cause human discomfort, DMF must be designed robust against such nonlinear vibration. In this paper to reduce the SHV occurrence and to show a more robust design indicator, the SHV causing the mechanism is researched by testing and 1D CAE modeling.

Diesel Particulate filter (DPF) is installed as after treatment device of exhaust gas in diesel engine, and collects the Particulate Matter (PM). However, as the operation time of engine increases, PM is accumulated in the DPF, resulting in deterioration of PM collection efficiency and increasing in pressure loss. Therefore, Post injection has been attracted attention as DPF regeneration method for burning and removing PM in DPF. However, Post injection causes oil dilution when fuel is injected at the middle to late stage of expansion stroke. Oil dilution are concerned to deteriorate the sliding property of piston and the thermal efficiency. For this reason, it is necessary to elucidate the mechanism and the behavior that spray impinges lubricating oil film. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to construct model of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) that predicts amount of oil dilution which is concern for post injection in diesel engine, with high accuracy.

This paper describes new method for selecting optimal field points in Inverse-Numerical Acoustic analysis (INA), and its application to construction of a sound source model for diesel engines. INA identifies the surface vibration of a sound source by using acoustic transfer functions and actual sound pressures measured at field points located near the sound source. When measuring sound pressures with INA, it is necessary to determine the field point arrangement. Increased field points leads to longer test and analysis time. Therefore, guidelines for selecting the field point arrangement are needed to conduct INA efficiently. The authors focused on the standard deviations of distance between sound source elements and field points and proposed a new guideline for optimal field point selection in our past study. In that study, we verified the effectiveness of this guideline using a simple plate model.

In a typical mechanical product such as an automobile or construction machinery, it is important to identify deformation modes, for which experiments and analyses can result in significant improvements. It is also important to consider how to improve the structure with high rigidity by using a technique such as the strain energy method in conventional design and development. However, the abovementioned method often generates conflicting results with regard to weight saving and cost reduction of development requirements. Transfer path analysis (TPA) using the finite element method (FEM) is an effective way to reduce noise and vibration in the automobile with respect to these issues. TPA can reveal the transfer path from the input to the response of the output point and the contribution of the path, and to efficiently consider improved responses.

In direct injection spark ignition (DISI), spray characteristics such as the penetration, spatial dispersion, droplet size distribution and the spray wall interaction process are extremely important to control the combustion process through the mixture formation process. Furthermore, the spray basic feature including the spatial and temporal changes is the key issue to reduce the Particulate Matter (PM) & HC emissions. In this study, we reveal both of the macroscopic and microscopic structures of the spray dynamics by Super High Spatial Resolution Photography (SHSRP). Furthermore, it is found that the simulated spray structure such as the penetration and droplet size distribution using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code is well consistent with the experimental results.

The compressible Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) for the diesel spray with OpenFOAM is presented to reduce CPU time by massively parallel computing of the scalar type supercomputer (CRAY XE6) and simulate the development of the non-evaporative and the evaporative spray. The maximum computational speeds are 14 times (128 cores) and 43 times (128 cores) for of the non-evaporative spray and the spray flame with one-step reaction, respectively, compared to the one core simulation. In the spray flame simulation with the reduced reaction mechanism (29 species, 52 reactions), the maximum computational speed is 149 times (512 cores). Then LES of the non-evaporative and the evaporative spray (Spray A) are calculated. The results indicate that the spray tip penetration is well predicted, although the size of the computational domain must be set equal to that of the experiment.

Researches for automation of hydraulic excavators have been conducted for laborsaving, improved efficiency of operations and increased worker's safety improvement. Authors' final goal is to develop automatic digging system which can realize the high efficiency. Therefore, it is thought that appropriate digging control algorithm is important for the automation. For this goal, this paper shows a dynamics model of the backhoe excavator and simulations using such models. Detailed dynamic models are needed from the point of view of the control engineering. Authors evaluate effectiveness of automatic digging algorithm by simulation models. In this research, the linkage mechanism which contains the closed loops is modeled based on the Newton-Euler formulation, where motion equation is derived. Moreover, we apply a soil model for simulation, based on the two dimensional distinct element method (DEM), in order to reproduce reaction force from grounds.

In order to reduce CO₂, Electric Vehicles (EV) and Hybrid Vehicles (HV) are effective. Those types of vehicles have powertrains from conventional vehicles. Those new powertrains drastically improve their efficiency from conventional vehicles keeping the same or superior power performance. On the other hand, those vehicles have an issue for thermal energy shortage during warming up process. The thermal energy is very large, and seriously affects the fuel economy for HV and the mileage for EV. In this paper, we propose VHDL-AMS multi-domain simulation technique for the estimation of the vehicle performance at the concept planning stage. The VHDL-AMS is IEEE and IEC standardized language, which supports not only multi-domain (physics) but also encryption. The common modeling language and encryption standard is indispensable for full-vehicle simulation.

Auto-ignition and combustion processes of dual-component fuel spray were numerically studied. A source code of SUPERTRAPP (developed by NIST), which is capable of predicting thermodynamic and transportation properties of pure fluids and fluid mixtures containing up to 20 components, was incorporated into KIVA3V to provide physical fuel properties and vapor-liquid equilibrium calculations. Low temperature oxidation reaction, which is of importance in ignition process of hydrocarbon fuels, as well as negative temperature coefficient behavior was taken into account using the multistep kinetics ignition prediction based on Shell model, while a global single-step mechanism was employed to account for high temperature oxidation reaction. Computational results with the present multi-component fuel model were validated by comparing with experimental data of spray combustion obtained in a constant volume vessel.

A high performance digging algorithm for a hydraulic excavator has not been established because the relationship between digging parameters and digging performance is complex. An examination process for a high-performance digging algorithm is proposed. In this paper, the digging efficiency is defined as the soil volume derived by the applied energy to drive the bucket in order to evaluate digging performance. The digging algorithm, which we study for high digging efficiency, decreases the reaction force to the bucket from the soil by moving the bucket upward when the reaction force exceeds a threshold during digging. Digging tests are performed with a miniature test device and a simulation model by two-dimensional distinct element methods (2D-DEM). The device and the simulation assess the effectiveness of the digging algorithm. It is quantitatively shown that the digging performance obtained by the feedback digging system is improved to prevent growing of reaction force.

In this research, we aim at the construction of a steering cooperation-type front-wheel steering control system to reduce the rider's steering load by stabilizing the behavior of the motorcycle when turbulence in the direction of a roll occurs during low-speed driving. Finally, a front-wheel steering control system that considers cooperation with a rider's steering based on the experimental result is constructed, and the utility is verified by simulation.

It is very much necessary for researchers and engineers whose work is the field of combustion in a CI engine to find the information of droplets in a diesel spray. The information is strongly required to construct the model of spray built in the numerical code for its simulation and to be used for the verification of the accuracy of the calculation. This paper describes the photographing system with high spatial resolution, the distribution of droplet size and the vortex scale caused by the droplets motion by means of this system.

It’ll be expected that tandem riders increase in the future. So, there is a need to improve the motorcycle stability of tandem riding from the perspectives of safety and comfort. In this research, we focus on tandem riding at low speed because the motorcycle especially becomes unstable. In order to improve the stability of a motorcycle after disturbance is input by the passenger’s posture change, we design a front wheel steer control system that assists the rider’s driving operation. And we simulate it. It is necessary to consider cooperation with the rider’s driving operation. In this study, as a means to consider the cooperative control of the man-machine system, the fuzzy logic was applied to this system.

Current simulation of Noise, Vibration and Harshness (NVH) using Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) often uses a large DOF and detailed finite element model along with improvement of CAE technology and computational performance. By using a detailed model, predictions of precise vibration characteristics become possible. However, the number of eigenmodes in the target frequency range increases and engineers require a lot of time to examine eigenmodes and establish countermeasures. In this paper, a practical method of efficient and effective analysis by classifying target eigenmodes into a small number of groups is proposed. The classification is executed based on the relation between the dynamic characteristics of the entire automotive body structure and substructures.