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This course is verified by Probitas as meeting the AS9104/3A requirements for Continuing Professional Development. Advanced product quality planning (APQP) is essential to improving the way companies develop products and services.  It is a standardized, universally accepted fundamental business strategy. This strategy is applicable to all types of organizations including manufacturing and service companies, schools, hospitals, and governmental agencies. The aim of APQP is to enable the organization to produce products and provide services focused on satisfying customer’s needs, wants, and expectations.  

Design of Experiments is a statistically based, structured approach to product or process improvement that will quickly yield significant increases in product quality and subsequent decreases in cost.  Products and processes can be designed to function with less variation and with less sensitivity to environmental factors or customer usage. While still maintaining high quality from a customer's viewpoint, products and processes can utilize lower cost materials and methods.  Specifications can be opened-up with wider tolerances while still maintaining high quality for customers.  

The Process FMEA and Control Plan program introduces the basic concepts behind this important tool and provides training in how to conduct an effective PFMEA. First, the course explains what a PFMEA is and how it improves the long-term performance of your products, services and related processes by addressing process related failures. The role of the PFMEA in the overall framework of Quality Management System Requirements is explained as well as the role of the PFMEA in the Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) process. Additionally, the differences and relationships between the DFMEA and PFMEA are well defined.

During this DFMEA Overview and Application course, participants will be introduced to important FMEA concepts, the basic theory behind the concepts, then discuss how these concepts can be applied to the customer's design FMEA activities. Participant activities include: reading assignments, group discussions, exercises, building Block Diagrams as a group, and beginning a DFMEA on a customer’s product.

The concept of a Quality System’s approach to business has been employed successfully and sometimes not so successfully for several decades. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has been supplying standards that list the key elements/clauses and requirements for building and implementing Quality Systems for over 30 years. These standards are based on the relatively simple concepts of Total Quality Management (TQM), essential principals of management, and a “Process” approach. These standards have been revised several times over the years to make them more realistic and user friendly.

This course is offered in China only and presented in Mandarin Chinese. The course materials are bilingual (English and Chinese). Currently in the industry, especially within China, product requirement development is more of an experience-based process rather than a scientific methodology. This course addresses this issue and provides a more process-driven method for better requirement development through the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) methodology.  Real industrial examples are used to demonstrate how to systematically convert the voice of the customer data to engineering specifications using QFD.

Take notes! Take the wheel! There is no better place to gain an appreciation for vehicle dynamics than from the driver’s seat. Spend three, intense days with a world-renowned vehicle dynamics engineer and SAE Master Instructor, his team of experienced industry engineers, and the BMW-trained professional driving instructors. They will guide you as you work your way through 12 classroom modules learning how and why vehicles go, stop and turn. Each classroom module is immediately followed by an engaging driving exercise on BMW’s private test track.

Design of Experiments (DOE) is a methodology that can be effective for general problem-solving, as well as for improving or optimizing product design and manufacturing processes. Specific applications of DOE include identifying proper design dimensions and tolerances, achieving robust designs, generating predictive math models that describe physical system behavior, and determining ideal manufacturing settings. This course utilizes hands-on activities to help you learn the criteria for running a DOE, the requirements and pre-work necessary prior to DOE execution, and how to select the appropriate designed experiment type to run.

RMS (Reliability-Maintainability-Safety-Supportability) engineering is emerging as the newest discipline in product development due to new credible, accurate, quantitative methods. Weibull Analysis is foremost among these new tools. New and advanced Weibull techniques are a significant improvement over the original Weibull approach. This workshop, originally developed by Dr. Bob Abernethy, presents special methods developed for these data problems, such as Weibayes, with actual case studies in addition to the latest techniques in SuperSMITH® Weibull for risk forecasts with renewal and optimal component replacement.

This technical paper collection is intended to include papers that will discuss and promote the recent advances in the modeling and analysis of commercial vehicle chassis, suspension, and tire modeling and simulation. Topics include, but are not limited to: commercial vehicle dynamics; chassis control devices such as ABS, traction control, yaw/roll stability control, and potentially the interplay with suspension control; chassis modeling and simulation to study and resolve issues pertaining to ride comfort, crash/deformation, and safety structure; suspension modeling and simulation studies covering passive and active control methodologies; and tires which would cover new and/or improved modeling techniques.

The papers in this collection are to provide a forum for presentations on steering and suspension related topics as it applies to ground vehicles. Papers address new approaches as well as advances in application of steering, suspension related technologies.

Abstract In this article, a unique design for Hydro-Pneumatic Energy Harvesting Suspension HPEHS system is introduced. The design includes a hydraulic rectifier to maintain one-way flow direction in order to obtain maximum power generation from the vertical oscillation of the suspension system and achieve handling and comfort car drive. A mathematical model is presented to study the system dynamics and non-linear effects for HPEHS system. A simulation model is created by using Advanced Modeling Environment Simulations software (AMEsim) to analyze system performance. Furthermore, a co-simulation platform model is developed using Matlab-Simulink and AMEsim to optimize the PID controller parameters of the external variable load resistor applied on the generator by using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO).

Abstract Reliability analysis of a large-scale system under random dynamic loads can be a very time-consuming task since it requires repeated studies of the system. In many engineering problems, for example, wave loads on an offshore platform, the excitation loads are defined using a power spectral density (PSD) function. For a given PSD function, one needs to generate many time histories to make sure the excitation load is modeled accurately. Global and local approximation methods are available to predict the system response efficiently. Each way has their advantages and shortcomings. The combined approximations (CA) method is an efficient method, which combines the advantages of local and global approximations. This work demonstrates two methodologies that utilize CA to reduce the cost of crude or separable Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) of linear dynamic systems when the excitation loads are defined using PSD functions.

Abstract The suspension system has been shown to have significant effects on vehicle performance, including handling, ride, component durability, and even energy efficiency during the design process. In this study, a new roll-plane hydraulically interconnected suspension (HIS) system is proposed to enhance both roll and lateral dynamics of a two-axle bus. The roll-plane stability analysis for the HIS system has been intensively explored in a number of studies, while only few efforts have been made for suspension tuning, especially considering lateral plane stability. This article aims to explore the integrated lateral and roll dynamics by suspension tuning of a two-axle bus equipped with HIS system. A ten-degree-of-freedom (DOF) lumped-mass vehicle model is integrated with either transient mechanical-hydraulic model for HIS or the traditional suspension components, namely, shock absorber and anti-roll bar (ARB).

The 12 papers in this technical paper collection discuss technologies that address the treatment of engine exhaust emissions to meet commercial vehicle requirements. The scope covers developments in catalysis, materials, controls, and integration with the complete engine/vehicle system.

This technical paper collection features 10 papers dedicated to chassis, suspension, and tire modeling and simulation developed for and applied to vehicle systems. Topic covered include vehicle modeling, vehicle dynamic simulation analysis (handling, ride comfort, mobility, durability, etc.), and vehicle design.

Road vibrations cause fatigue failures in vehicle components and systems. Therefore, reliable and accurate damage and life assessment is crucial to the durability and reliability performances of vehicles, especially at early design stages. However, durability and reliability assessment is difficult not only because of the unknown underlying damage mechanisms, such as crack initiation and crack growth, but also due to the large uncertainties introduced by many factors during operation. How to effectively and accurately assess the damage status and quantitatively measure the uncertainties in a damage evolution process is an important but still unsolved task in engineering probabilistic analysis. In this paper, a new procedure is developed to assess the durability and reliability performance, and characterize the uncertainties of damage evolution of components under constant amplitude loadings.

This paper describes the development and testing of a Dynamic Vibration Absorber to reduce frame beaming vibration in a highway tractor. Frame beaming occurs when the first vertical bending mode of the frame is excited by road or wheel-end inputs. It is primarily a problem for driver comfort. Up until now, few options were available to resolve this problem. The paper will review the phenomenon, design factors affecting a vehicle's sensitivity to frame beaming, and the principles of Dynamic Vibration Absorbers (AKA Tuned Mass Dampers). Finally, the paper will describe simulation and testing that led to the development of an effective vibration absorber as a field fix.

A range of axle suspensions, comprising hydro-pneumatic struts and diverse linkage configurations, have evolved in recent years for large size mining trucks to achieve improved ride and higher operating speeds. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of different independent front suspension linkages that have been implemented in various off-road vehicles, including a composite linkage (CL), a candle (CA), a trailing arm (TA), and a double Wishbone (DW) suspension applied to a 190 tons mining truck. Four different suspension linkages are modeled in MapleSim platform to evaluate their kinematic properties. The relative kinematic properties of the suspensions are evaluated in terms of variations in the kingpin inclination, caster, camber, toe-in and horizontal wheel center displacements considering the motion of a hydro-pneumatic strut. The results revealed the CL and DW suspensions yield superior kinematic response characteristics compared to the CA and TA suspensions.

This paper focuses on the manufacturer's conflict in the conceptual design of commercial vehicles between highly customized special vehicles and the greatest possible degree of standardization. Modularity and standardization are crucial success factors for realizing high variance at the best cost efficiency in development and production as well for achieving the highest quality standards at reduced efforts for technical validation. The presented virtual design approach for commercial vehicle concepts allows for purposeful design and integration of new concepts and technologies on the component level in an existing product portfolio - not neglecting manufacture's portfolio requirements concerning standardization and modularity. The integrated tool chain helps to bring trade-offs to a head that exist in balancing between dedicated vehicles with best customer-relevant characteristics and standardized vehicles with the highest degree of commonality.