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The steering system is a critical component for controlling a vehicle's direction. In the context of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicles, where drivers may not always be actively holding the steering wheel, early detection of precursor noise signals is essential to prevent serious accidents resulting from the loss of steering system functionality. It is therefore imperative to develop a device capable of early detection and notification of steering system malfunctions. Therefore, the current study aimed to quantify the noise levels generated within the Column-based Electric Power Steering (C-EPS) system of a D-segment sedan. To this end, we measured the uniaxial acceleration in nine noise-generating areas while simultaneously collecting data from three Controller Area Network (CAN) sources that are directly related to steering operation.

Lithium-ion battery has advantages of high energy density and cost effectiveness than other types of batteries. However due to the low mechanical stability, their performance is strongly influenced by environmental conditions. Especially, external pressure on a cell surface is a crucial factor because an appropriate force can improve battery cycle life, but excessive force may cause structural failure. In addition, battery pack is composed of various components so that uncertainties in dimension and material properties of each component can cause a wide variance in initial pressure. Therefore, it is important to optimize structural design of battery pack to ensure initial pressure in an effective range. In this paper, target stiffness of module structure was determined based on cell level cycle life test, then structural design has been optimized for weight reduction. Cell cycling tests were performed under different stiffness conditions and analyzed with regression model.

The development of vehicles faces changes in many future flows. The vehicle’s power transfer systems are being changed from conventional types to Hybrid, Electric and Hydrogen vehicles. At this moment, the technology of EPS (Electric Power Steering) system has been expanding from a simple torque assist system to LKAS(Lane Keeping Assist System), PAP(Park Assist Pilot), ALCAS(Active Lane Change System), ADAS(Advanced Driver Assistance System). A good test bench is necessary for the evaluation of both hardware and control logics of EPS in these complexities of development process. Simultaneous Rig and HILS tests can be performed to check that the steering hardware system can perform to the concept of the development vehicle and develop EPS control logic performances. The hardware performance of the steering system might be evaluated based on measured friction and stiffness, taking into account various driving conditions.

Electric Power Steering (EPS) needs to meet both functional and stability requirements, it plays significant role in controlling vehicle motion. In the meantime, customers emphasizes natural steering feel which can reflect vehicle motion and road surface information while isolate unwanted external disturbances. In general, conventional EPS control algorithms exert assist torque according to driver torque measured from torque sensor, while maintaining stability using stabilizing compensator. However, there exist significant trade-off between steering feel and stability, because the performances of assist torque control and stabilizing compensator are strongly coupled. In this paper a torque feedback control algorithm for EPS system is proposed in order to overcome the trade-off, and to achieve more natural, robust steering feel.

This paper presents the direct liquid-cooled power module with the circular pin fin which is the inverter parallel cooling system for high output EV/FCEV. The direct cooling system of a conventional inverter is designed to supply coolant along the direction in which the heating element such as Si-chip is disposed and discharge coolant to the opposite side. In case of the inverter, the higher the output is, the larger temperature difference between inlet and outlet becomes due to the heat exchange of the heat generation element, so that temperature difference depends on the position of Si-chip. Since lifetime is judged on the basis of maximum temperature of Si-chip, the inverter itself must be replaced or discarded due to durability of the inverter even though Si-chip can drive further. The simple way to solve this problem is to increase cooling flow rate, but this leads to excessive increase in pressure loss due to circular pin fin.

The performance and marketability of eco-friendly vehicles highly depend on their high-voltage battery system. Lithium-ion pouch cells have advantages of high energy density and cost-effectiveness than other types of batteries. However, due to their low mechanical stability, their characteristics are strongly influenced by external conditions. Especially, external pressure on pouch cell is a crucial factor for the performance, life cycle, and structural safety of battery pack. Therefore, optimizing pressure level has been a critical consideration in designing battery pack structures for lithium-ion pouch cell. In this work, we developed an optimized structure of the battery module and pack to apply appropriate pressure on pouch cells. They also include a standardization strategy to meet the varied demand in capacity and power for automotive application.

The engine indicated torque is not delivered entirely to the wheels, because it is lowered by losses, such as the pumping, mechanical friction and front auxiliary power consumption. The front auxiliary belt drive system is a big power consumer-fueling and operating the various accessory devices, such as air conditioning compressor, electric alternator, and power steering pump. The standard fuel economy test does not consider the auxiliary driving torque when it is activated during the actual driving condition and it is considered a five-cycle correction factor only. Therefore, research on improving the front end auxiliary drive (FEAD) system is still relevant in the immediate future, particularly regarding the air conditioning compressor and the electric alternator. An exertion to minimize the auxiliary loss is much smaller than the sustained effort required to reduce engine friction loss.

Conventional EPS (Electric Power Steering) systems are operated by one type of steering tuning map set by steering test drivers before being released to customers. That is, the steering efforts can't change in many different driving conditions such as road conditions (low mu, high mu and unpaved roads) or some specific driving conditions (sudden stopping, entering into EPS failure modes and full accelerating). Those conditions can't give drivers consistent steering efforts. This paper approached the new concept technology detecting those conditions by using vehicle and EPS sensors such as tire wheel speeds, vehicle speed, steering angle, steering torque, steering speed and so on. After detecting those conditions and judging what the best steering efforts for safe vehicle driving are, EPS systems automatically can be changed with the steering friction level and selection of steering optimized mapping on several conditions.

In the brake system, unevenly distributed disc-pad contact pressure not only leads to a falling-off in braking feeling due to uneven wear of brake pads, but also a main cause of system instability which leads to squeal noise. For this reason there have been several attempts to measure contact pressure distribution. However, only static pressure distribution has been measured in order to estimate the actual pressure distribution. In this study a new test method is designed to quantitatively measure dynamic contact pressure distribution between disc and pad in vehicle testing. The characteristics of dynamic contact pressure distribution are analyzed for various driving conditions and pad shape. Based on those results, CAE model was updated and found to be better in detecting propensity of brake squeal.

In order to apply an effective noise reduction treatment determining the contribution of different engine components to the total sound perceived inside the cabin is important. Although accelerometer or laser based vibration tests are usually performed, the sound contributions are not always captured accurately with such approaches. Microphone based methods are strongly influenced by the many reflections and other sound sources inside the engine bay. Recently, it has been shown that engine radiation can be effectively measured using microphones combined with particle velocity sensors while the engine remains mounted in the car [6]. Similar results were obtained as with a dismounted engine in an anechoic room. This paper focusses on the measurement of the transfer path from the engine to the vehicle interior in order to calculate the sound pressure contribution of individual engine sections at the listener's position.

For (benchmark) tests it is not only useful to study the acoustic performance of the whole vehicle, but also to assess separate components such as the engine. Reflections inside the engine bay bias the acoustic radiation estimated with sound pressure based solutions. Consequently, most current methods require dismounting the engine from the car and installing it in an anechoic room to measure the sound emitted. However, this process is laborious and hard to perform. In this paper, two particle velocity based methods are proposed to characterize the sound radiated from an engine while it is still installed in the car. Particle velocity sensors are much less affected by reflections than sound pressure microphones when the measurements are performed near a radiating surface due to the particle velocity's vector nature, intrinsic dependency upon surface displacement and directivity of the sensor. Therefore, the engine does not have to be disassembled, which saves time and money.

Emissions regulations are becoming more severe, and they remain a principal issue for vehicle manufacturers. Many engine subsystems and control technologies have been introduced to meet the demands of these regulations. For diesel engines, combustion control is one of the most effective approaches to reducing not only engine exhaust emissions but also cylinder-by-cylinder variation. However, the high cost of the pressure sensor and the complex engine head design for the extra equipment are stressful for the manufacturers. In this paper, a cylinder-pressure-based engine control logic is introduced for a multi-cylinder high speed direct injection (HSDI) diesel engine. The time for 50% of the mass fraction to burn (MFB50) and the IMEP are valuable for identifying combustion status. These two in-cylinder quantities are measured and applied to the engine control logic.

The efficiency of a gap-type of deflector for suppressing vehicle sunroof buffeting is studied in this work. Buffeting is an unpleasant low frequency booming caused by flow-excited Helmholtz resonance of the interior cabin. Accurate prediction of this phenomenon requires accounting for the bi-directional coupling between the transient shear layer aerodynamics (vortex shedding) and the acoustic response of the cabin. Numerical simulations were performed using a CFD/CAA numerical method based on the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM). The well established LBM approach provides the time-dependent solution to the compressible Navier-Stokes equations, and directly captures both turbulent and acoustic pressure fluctuations over a wide range of scales given adequate computational grid resolution. In this study the same gap-type deflector configuration is installed on two different types of vehicles, a SUV and a sedan.

Luxury sound is one of the most important sound qualities in a premium passenger car. Previous work has shown that, because of the effects of many different interior sounds, it is difficult to evaluate the luxury sound objectively by using only the A-weighted sound pressure level. In this paper, the characteristics of such sound were first investigated by a systematic approach and a new objective evaluation method for luxury sound-the luxury sound quality index--which was developed by the systematic combination of the seven major interior sound quality indexes based on path analysis. The seven major sounds inside a passenger car were selected by a basic investigation evaluated by the members of a luxury automotive club. Seven major interior sound quality indexes were developed by using sound metrics, which are the psychoacoustic parameters, and the multiple regression method used for the modeling of the correlation between objective and subjective evaluation.

All vehicles have some or all accessories such as alternators, air conditioner compressors, power steering pumps, and water pumps. These devices are mounted on the front of the engine and are powered by a pulley mounted on the front of the crankshaft. This power represents a parasitic loss and this loss is greater at higher engine speeds. To reduce the impact of the accessories on the engine, a two speed transmission that reduces the accessories speed at off-idle conditions was designed, implemented, and tested on several vehicles. The vehicles were tested for fuel economy on the Japanese 10.15 Mode driving cycle, the FTP75 city cycle, and the HWFET Highway Cycle. Results showed an average of 5% reduction in fuel consumption and a corresponding 5% in CO2 with no impact of accessory performance and vehicle drivability. Simulations with GT-Drive software was used to determine the optimum speed reduction and the threshold switching speed that maximizes fuel savings.

Shudder vibration of a hydraulic power steering system during parking maneuver was studied with numerical and experimental methods. To quantify vibration performance of the system and recognize important stimuli for drivers, a shudder metric was derived by correlation between objective measurements and subjective ratings. A CAE model for steering wheel vibration analysis was developed and compared with measured data. In order to describe steering input dependency of shudder, a new dynamic friction modeling method, in which the magnitude of effective damping is determined by average velocity, was proposed. The developed model was validated using the measured steering wheel acceleration and the pressure change at inlet of the steering gear box. It was shown that the developed model successfully describes major modes by comparing the calculated FRF of the hydraulic system with measured one from the hydraulic excitation test.

In this study a new model is proposed for turbulent premixed combustion in a spark-ignition engine. An independent transport equation is solved for the mean reaction progress variable in a propagation form in KIVA-3V. An expression for turbulent burning velocity was previously given as a product of turbulent diffusivity in unburned gas, laminar flame speed and maximum flame surface density. The model has similarity with the G equation approach, but originates from zone conditionally averaged formulation for unburned gas. A spark kernel grows initially as a laminar flame and becomes a fully developed turbulent flame brush according to a transition criterion in terms of the kernel size and the integral length scale. Simulation of a homogeneous charge pancake chamber engine showed good agreement with measured flame propagation and pressure trace. The model was also applied against experimental data of Hyundai θ-2.0L SI engine.

Numerous machine elements are operated in mixed lubrication regime where is governed by a combination of boundary and fluid film effects. The direct contact between two surfaces reduces a machines life by increasing local pressure. In order to estimate machine's life exactly, the effect of asperity contact should be considered in the lubrication model. In this study, new 3-dimensional partial elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication (PEHL) algorithm is developed. The algorithm contains the procedures to find out solid contact regions within the lubricated regime and to calculate both the pressure by fluid film and the contact pressure between the asperities of the solids. Using the algorithm, we conducted the PEHL analysis for the contact between the rotating shaft and the inside of pinion gear. To investigate the effect of surface topology two different surfaces with sinusoidal profile are used. Both film thickness and pressure are calculated successfully through the PEHL algorithm.

In this study, two-phase flow simulations have been performed for the intake system of a commercial truck. The intake duct, which is the first component in heavy-duty engine, is located in the upper side of a cabin. The flow in the intake system is a typical two-phase flow with the air as the continuous phase and the water as the dispersed phase during rainy weather. The numerical two-phase simulation is performed by using the Largrangian model as implemented in STAR-CD. The influence of the water droplets on the airflow as well as droplet break-up and interactions of the droplets with the walls can be taken into account. Two and three cyclone model inside the intake system have been investigated by numerical simulations. The computational results can be used to get a better understanding of the physics of the flow inside the intake system and to optimize the water separation.

Conventional combustion models are suitable for predicting flame propagation for a wrinkled flamelet configuration. But they cannot predict the burned gas composition. This causes the overestimation of burned gas temperature and pressure. A modified method of combustion simulation was established to calculate the chemical composition and to investigate their ultimate fate in the burned gas region. In this work, the secondary products of combustion process, like CO and H2, were considered as well as the primary products like CO2 and H2O. A 3-dimensional CFD program was used to simulate the turbulent combustion and a zero dimensional equilibrium code was used to predict the chemical composition of burned gas. With this simple connection, more reasonable temperature and pressure approaching the real phenomena were predicted without additional time costs.