Search Results

Brake judder is about oscillations excited by brake application, which are generated in the contact area between brake pad and brake disc and are transmitted by the elements of the suspension to body and steering system. The driver perceives these perturbations as brake pedal pulsations, steering wheel rotational and body vibrations. The evaluation of a suspension concerning brake judder often takes place for the first time in road tests, since established simulation processes with a high significance concerning ride comfort are missing. At such a late moment necessary modifications in the development process are only hardly possible and very expensive. For avoiding brake judder a systematic development process is needed for brake and suspension. Each one can separately be improved in measurably borders so that their assembly is free of cold brake judder. The present paper shows appropriate test and simulation methods to achieve this.

Scope of the DRESS project is to research, develop and validate a distributed and redundant electrical steering system technology for an aircraft nose landing gear. The new system aims to: • reduce system weight at aircraft level, replacing the current hydraulic actuation system with an electric one. • improve aircraft safety, achieving higher system redundancy levels compared to the current technology capabilities. This paper presents an outline of different activities occurring in the DRESS project and also shows preliminary results of the new system performance.

Patents granted recently to Mr. Rode have changed the industry capability to adjust and verify wheel-end bearings on trucks. Until now it was believed1 that there was nothing available to confirm or verify the most desirable settings of preload on these bearings. The new, breakthrough invention is a tool and spindle-locking nut that permit quick and accurate wheel bearing adjustment by utilizing direct reading force measurement. Bearings can be set to either SAE recommended preloads or specific endplay settings. The author has been working on bearing adjustment methods for industrial applications for over forty years, and considers these inventions to be his most important breakthrough for solving this elusive bearing adjustment problem. Consistent wheel bearing preload adjustment was not possible before, even though it was widely known to achieve the best wheel performance as noted in SAE specification J2535 and re-affirmed in 2006 by the SAE Truck and Bus Wheel Subcommittee.

The timing and associated levels of braking between initial brake pedal application and actual maximum braking at the wheels for a tractor-semitrailer are important parameters in understanding vehicle performance and response. This paper presents detailed brake timing information obtained from full scale instrumented testing of a tractor-semitrailer under various conditions of load and speed. Brake timing at steer, drive and semitrailer brake positions is analyzed for each of the tested conditions. The study further seeks to compare the full scale test data to predicted response from detailed heavy truck computer vehicle dynamics simulation models available in commercial software packages in order to validate the model's brake timing parameters. The brake timing data was collected during several days of full scale instrumented testing of a tractor-semitrailer performed at the Transportation Research Center, in East Liberty, Ohio.

The Systems Engineering Relationship between Qualification, Environmental Stress Screening (ESS), and Reliability is often poorly understood: as a consequence resources are expended on efforts that degrade inherent hardware reliability and vitiate reliability predictions. This article expatiates on the Systems Engineering relationship between Qualification and ESS, and how their proper application enhances inherent reliability and supports credible reliability predictions. Examples of how their uninformed application degrades inherent hardware reliability and vitiates reliability predictions, and how program/equipment managers can avoid this, are presented.

The embedded software has played an increasing role in safety-critical systems. At the same time the current development process of “build, then integrate” has proven unaffordable for the Aerospace industry. This paper outlines challenges in safety-critical embedded systems in addressing system-level faults that are currently discovered late in the development life cycle. We then discuss an architecture-centric approach to model-based engineering, i.e., to complement the validation of systems with analysis of different operational quality aspects from an architecture model. A key technology in this approach is the Architecture Analysis & Design Language (AADL), an SAE International standard for embedded software system. It supports analysis of operational qualities such as responsiveness, safety-criticality, security, and reliability through model annotations.

The paper presents linear and non-linear driveline models for Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) in order to evaluate the main parameters for optimal tuning, when considering the drivability. The implemented models consider the linear and non-linear driveline dynamics, including the effect of the engine inertia, the clutch damper, the driveshaft, the half-shafts and the tires. Sensitivity analyses are carried out for each driveline component during tip-in maneuvers. The paper also analyses the overall frequency response using Bode diagrams and natural frequencies. It is demonstrated that the most basic model capable of taking into account the first order dynamics of the driveline must consider the moments of inertia of the engine, the transmission and the wheels, the stiffness and the damping properties of the clutch damper, driveshaft and half-shafts, and the tires (which link the wheel to the equivalent inertia of the vehicle).

Recently Michelin has been developing a new airless, integrated tire and wheel combination called the Tweel® tire. The Tweel tire aims at performance levels beyond those possible with conventional pneumatic technology because of its shear band design, added suspension, and potentially decreased rolling resistance. In this paper, we will focus on the environmental impact of the Tweel tire during its life-cycle from manufacturing, through use and disposal. Since the Tweel tire is currently still in the research phase and is not manufactured and used on a large scale, there are uncertainties with respect to end-of-life scenarios and rolling resistance estimates that will affect the LCA. Nevertheless, some preliminary conclusions of the Tweel tire's environmental performance in comparison to a conventional radial tire can be drawn.

In the present work, an experimental and numerical analysis of high pressure Diesel spray evolution is carried out in terms of spray momentum flux time history and instantaneous injection rate. The final goal of spray momentum and of injection rate analyses is the evaluation of the nozzle outlet flow characteristics and of the nozzle internal geometry possible influences on cavitation phenomena, which are of primary importance for the spray evolution. Further, the evaluation of the flow characteristics at the nozzle exit is fundamental in order to obtain reliable boundary conditions for injection process 3D simulation. In this paper, spray momentum data obtained in ambient temperature, high counter-pressure conditions at the Perugia University Spray Laboratory are presented and compared with the results of 3D simulations of the momentum rig itself.

This paper describes a driving controller to improve vehicle lateral stability and maneuverability for a six wheel driving / six wheel steering (6WD/6WS) vehicle. The driving controller consists of upper and lower level controller. The upper level controller based on sliding control theory determines front, middle steering angle, additional net yaw moment and longitudinal net force according to reference velocity and steering of a manual driving, remote control and autonomous controller. The lower level controller takes desired longitudinal net force, yaw moment and tire force information as an input and determines additional front steering angle and distributed longitudinal tire force on each wheel. This controller is based on optimal distribution control and has considered the friction circle related to vertical tire force and friction coefficient acting on the road and tire.

The adhesion control is the basic technology of active safety for the four-wheel driven EV. In this paper, a novel adhesion control method based on fuzzy logic control is proposed. The control system can maximize the adhesion force without road condition information and vehicle speed signal. Also, the regulation torque to prevent wheel slip is smooth and the vehicle driving comfort is greatly improved. For implementation, only the rotating speed of the driving wheel and the motor driving torque signals are needed, while the derived information of the wheel acceleration and the skid status are used. The simulation and road test results have shown that the adhesion control method is effective for preventing slip and lock on the slippery road condition.

Hydrostatic (hydraulic hybrid) drives have demonstrated energy efficiency and emissions reduction benefits. This paper investigates the potential of an independent hydrostatic wheel drive system for implementing a traction-based vehicle lateral stability control system. The system allows an upper level vehicle stability controller to produce a desired corrective yaw moment via a differential distribution of torque to the independent wheel motors. In cornering maneuvers that require braking on any one wheel of the vehicle, the motors can be operated as pumps for re-generating energy into an on-board accumulator. This approach avoids or reduces activation of the friction brakes, thereby reducing energy waste as heat in the brake pads and offering potential savings in brake maintenance costs. For this study, a model of a 4×4 hydrostatic independent wheel drive system is constructed in a causal and modular fashion and is coupled to a 7 DOF vehicle handling dynamics model.

Accelerated life testing (ALT) is widely used to determine the failure time distribution of a product and the associated life-stress relationship in order to predict the product's reliability under normal operating conditions. Many types of stress loadings such as constant-stress, step-stress and cyclic-stress can be utilized when conducting ALT. Extensive research has been conducted on the analysis of ALT data obtained under a specified stress loading. However, the equivalency of ALT experiments involving different stress loadings has not been investigated. In this paper, a definition is provided for the equivalency of various ALT plans involving different stress loadings. Based on this definition, general equivalent ALT plans and some special types of equivalent ALT plans are explored. For demonstration, a constant-stress ALT and a ramp-stress ALT for miniature lamps are presented and their equivalency is investigated.

As the number of electrical devices in modern vehicles increases, the battery becomes more critical component for the operation of vehicles. To ensure the startability of the vehicle, battery conditions such as state of charge and state of health should be properly monitored and maintained. To reduce walk-home incidents due to no-start situation, appropriate warning should be issued to the driver to advise necessary actions such as replacing or re-charging the battery. For the last couple of years, General Motors has studied and developed several battery health monitoring methods based on different battery health signatures. Yet, it is found that relying on a single method may lead to false alarm or misdetection due to lack of information or uncertainty. This paper develops the algorithm for more robust and reliable battery health monitoring and prognosis, by applying Evidence Theory to fuse different battery health signatures.

A simulation-based, system reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) method is presented that can handle problems with multiple failure regions and correlated random variables. Copulas are used to represent the correlation. The method uses a Probabilistic Re-Analysis (PRRA) approach in conjunction with a trust-region optimization approach and local metamodels covering each trust region. PRRA calculates very efficiently the system reliability of a design by performing a single Monte Carlo (MC) simulation per trust region. Although PRRA is based on MC simulation, it calculates “smooth” sensitivity derivatives, allowing therefore, the use of a gradient-based optimizer. The PRRA method is based on importance sampling. It provides accurate results, if the support of the sampling PDF contains the support of the joint PDF of the input random variables. The sequential, trust-region optimization approach satisfies this requirement.

The paper presents a method for the indoor testing of road vehicle suspension systems. A suspension is positioned on a rotating drum which is located in the Laboratory for the Safety of Transport at Politecnico di Milano. Special six-axis load cells have been designed and used for measuring the forces/moments acting at each suspension-chassis joints. The forces/moments, wheel accelerations, displacements are measured up to 100 Hz. Two different types of test can be performed. The tire/wheel unbalance effect on the suspension system behavior (Vibration and Harshness, VH) has been analyzed by testing the suspension system from zero to the vehicle maximum speed on a flat surface and by monitoring the forces transmitted to the chassis. In the second kind of test, the suspension system has been excited as the wheel passes over different cleats fixed on the drum.

Structural adhesive joints are expected to retain integrity in their entire service-life that normally involves cyclic loading concurrent with environmental exposure. Under such a severe working condition, effective determination of fatigue life at different temperatures is crucial for reliable joint design. The main goal of this work was thus defined as evaluation of fatigue performance of adhesive joints at their extreme working temperatures in order to be compared with their fracture properties under static loading. A series of standard double-cantilever-beam (DCB) specimens have been bonded by three structural 3M epoxy adhesives selected from different applications. The specimens were tested under monotonic and cyclic opening loads (mode-I) in order to evaluate the quasi-static and fatigue performances of selected adhesives at room temperature, 80°C and -40°C.

Incremental Sheet Forming (ISF) is an emerging sheet metal prototyping technology where a part is formed as one or more stylus tools are moving in a pre-determined path and deforming the sheet metal locally while the sheet blank is clamped along its periphery. A deformation analysis of incremental forming process is presented in this paper. The analysis includes the development of an analytical model for strain distributions based on part geometry and tool paths; and numerical simulations of the forming process with LS-DYNA. A skew cone is constructed and used as an example for the study. Analytical and numerical results are compared, and excellent correlations are found. It is demonstrated that the analytical model developed in this paper is reliable and efficient in the prediction of strain distributions for incremental forming process.

This work details the process employed to design the 2009 Cooper Union FSAE® suspension system, spanning the overarching design philosophy, configuration selection, analysis, fabrication, and implementation, while offering recommendations to those especially new to the field. The design methodology illustrated here provides a systematic approach to suspension geometry, material selection, packaging, and construction. Though this paper serves as a starting point for FSAE® suspension designers, it provides a succinct overview for those interested in general suspension design fundamentals. The design process began with the selection of a suspension configuration, geometries, and kinematics, which were driven in part by tire data, desired bulk vehicle dynamics characteristics, and overall geometric variability. The springs and adjustable dampers were then selected as the front and rear anti-roll bar properties were concurrently designed.

In this research, the interior noise of a passenger car was measured, and the sound quality metrics including sound pressure level, loudness, sharpness, and roughness were calculated. An artificial neural network was designed to successfully apply on automotive interior noise as well as numerous different fields of technology which aim to overcome difficulties of experimentations and save cost, time and workforce. Sound pressure level, loudness, sharpness, and roughness were estimated by using the artificial neural network designed by using the experiment values. The predicted values and experiment results are compared. The comparison results show that the realized artificial intelligence model is an appropriate model to estimate the sound quality of the automotive interior noise. The reliability value is calculated as 0.9995 by using statistical analysis.