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An important trend among vehicle NVH engineers is the production of attractive engine acceleration sound quality for the enhancement of a vehicle's image and performance. In addition, customers have increasing interest and enjoyment in customizing their cars to reflect their personal taste and preferences. The PESS (Personalized Engine Sound System) has been developed for making a unique and individually customizable vehicle concept. The system allows the customers an opportunity to create a variety of engine sounds in a single vehicle using active sound design technology. In this system, three different engine sound concepts are pre-defined, Dynamic, Sporty, and Extreme. Each of the engine sounds can then be adjusted with parameters that determine the timbre, such as main order, rumble, and high order. In addition, the pedal position during acceleration has also been used as a parameter to further personalize the experience.

Impact resistance of plastic underbody parts was studied using simulated injection-molded specimen which can be tested according to different types of material used, injection molding variants like position and number of injection molding gates, and features of ribs. Material applied was glass fiber reinforced polyamide which can be used in underbody parts. Test was performed using several combinations of injection molding gates and rib types. From the test result, optimal design guide for plastic underbody parts was determined. Also, new high impact resistant plastic material made of glass fiber reinforced polyamide 66 (PA66) and polyamide 6 (PA6) alloy was developed and the material properties useful for CAE were determined. As a case study, oil pan and muffler housing were designed following the optimal design guide and CAE. And the reliability of the sample muffler housing designed was verified.

A new noble material for automotive bumper fascia has been developed by compounding of ethylene-propylene block copolymers with ethylene-α-olefin copolymers and some additives. Also mineral fillers are added, if necessary. This material is suitable for injection molding of large parts including automotive bumper fascia. By using selected rubbers which have proper melt viscosity, molecular weight, and co-monomer content, and adding modified polymer containing polar group, it has enhanced processibility and paintability maintaining general properties such as tensile strength, impact strength at low temperature, and thermal and UV stability. The remarkable characteristics of this material is good processibility compared to the conventional TPOs. This material has especially high melt flow index(20∼30g/10min at 230°C) and stable flow behavior at the processing conditions.

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.

A study for improving the resistance to fretting corrosion of SCr 420 pinion gear was conducted. Fretting is the damage to contacting surfaces experiencing slight relative reciprocating sliding motion of low amplitude. Fretting corrosion is the fretting damage to unlubricated contacting surfaces accompanied by corrosion, mostly oxidation that occurs if the fretting occurs in air. Two kinds of conventional heat treatment and a newly designed one suggested for improving the resistance to the fretting corrosion of pinion gear were compared each other to find out what is the main factor for generating fretting corrosion phenomenon. Increased carbon potential at both the heating and diffusing zone and reduced time of tempering was found out to be a solution for improving the resistance to fretting corrosion of forged and heat treated gear steel. On the contrary, modified carbo-nitriding using ammonia gas has been getting worse the fretting corrosion problem.

On-center feel is a multivariate problem that a performance is represented using put-together several sub-characteristics such as torque feedback, response, torque linearity, hysteresis, returnability, etc. For the improvement of a multivariate problem, multi objective optimization should be carried out. However each characteristic which ignores correlation between characteristics is usually optimized up to now. The objective of this research, Mahalanobis Taguchi System (MTS) technique is grafted to on-center steering feel to obtain the efficient improvement. MTS technique can optimize the unified on-center index which is generated in consideration of correlation between characteristics. In this research, first an effective value of MTS technique is verified with on-center steering feel which has the multivariate characteristic. Second, on-center steering feel is improved using MTS technique and Design of Experiments (DOE).

3D digital human modeling (DHM) tools for vehicle packaging facilitate ergonomic design and evaluation based on anthropometry, comfort, and force analysis. It is now possible to quickly predict postures and positions for drivers with selected anthropometry based on ergonomics principles. Despite their powerful visual representation technology for human movements and postures, these tools are still questioned with regard to the validity of the output they provide, especially when predictions are made for different populations. Driving postures and positions of two populations (i.e. North Americans and Koreans) were measured in actual and mock-up SUVs to investigate postural differences and evaluate the results provided by a DHM tool. No difference in driving postures was found between different stature groups within the same population. Between the two populations, however, preferred angles differed for three joints (i.e., ankle, thigh, and hip).

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.

With the recent development of technologies for interpreting vibration and noise of vehicles, it has become possible for carmakers to reduce idle vibration and driving noise in the phase of preceding development. Thus, the issue of noise generation is drawing keen attention from production of prototype car through mass-production development. J. D. Power has surveyed the levels of customer satisfaction with all vehicles sold in the U.S. market and released the Initial Quality Study (IQS) index. As a growing number of emotional quality-related items are added to the IQS evaluation index, it is necessary to secure a sufficiently high quality level of low-frequency speaker sound against rattle noise. It is required to make a preceding review on the package tray panel, which is located at the bottom of the rear glass where the woofer speakers of a passenger sedan are installed, the door module panel in which the door speakers are built.

A new point of view in automatic transmission is proposed by R-R chart, which is a new analytic method based on the linearity of planetary gear and gear shift mechanism. The R-R chart is a visual tool to describe the whole motion of each rotational element of planetary gears in relation to the gear shift mechanism. Therefore, anyone can easily find on R-R chart not only the substance of the gear shift mechanisms in present automatic transmissions but also new gear shift mechanisms for the future automatic transmissions. This paper shows that the R-R chart is unique in 4-speed automatic transmissions with fixed compound planetary gear sets. As a result of the R-R chart application, this paper classifies the fixed compound planetary gear sets with 4 elements into 12 sets and the gear shift mechanisms into 3 types. Also, 4 R-R characteristic equations are derived as a correlation between speed ratios in 4-speed automatic transmissions.

In this paper, the distortion analysis in spot welded area of car body - front side member, it is found out that the optimum condition for panel assembly is closely related to the welding sequence, location of clamping system, number, shape and welding force. The distortion resulting from welding sequence is minimized starting from the surroundings of the clamping system and in the way that the value of the welding force is from large to small. The MCP is determined from the positions inducing the minimum distortion in panel through calculating the deformation and reacting force of the panel. The welding force originating from the manufacturing tolerance of assembly is a critical design factor determining the welding sequence and the clamping system that yield minimum distortion in spot welding of body panel.

The tube hydroforming technology (THF) has been extensively used as auto-body structural members such as engine cradle, frame rail etc. in order to meet the urgent need of vehicle weight and cost reduction as well as high quality. In this paper we experimentally investigate the mechanical properties for hydroformed tubes with various bulging strains under the plane strain mode. Axial compression tests for hydroformed tubes are performed to investigate the collapse load and collapse absorption capacity through the collapse load-displacement curves. Moreover the collapse absorption capacities are compared and discussed between as-received, hydroformed, and press formed tubes. Results demonstrate that the hydroformed tubes show higher collapse absorption capability in comparison with the as-received tube and the press formed tube, because of its high yield strength due to strain hardening.

The market demands for CO2 reduction and fuel economy have led to a variety of new gear set concepts of automatic transmissions with 4 planetary gear sets and 6 shift elements in recent years. Understanding the relationship between the torque of clutch and brake and gear ratio in the design stage is very important to assess new gear set concepts and to set up the control strategy for enhancing shift quality and to reduce the heat generation of clutch and brake. In this paper, a new systematic approach is used to unify the relationship between torque and gear ratio during the gear shift for all multi-step planetary automatic transmissions. This study describes the unified concept model with a lumped inertia regardless of the specific transmission layout and derives the principal unified relationship equations using torque and energy analysis, which prove that the sum of brake torque is always gear ratio -1 in every in-gear.

This paper presents a transient vibration analysis of a nonlinear full-vehicle. The full-vehicle model consists of a powertrain, a trimmed body, a drive line, and front and rear suspensions with tires. It is driven by combustion forces and runs on a road surface. By performing time-domain simulation, it is possible to capture nonlinear behavior of a vehicle such as preload due to gravitational force, large deformation, and material nonlinearity which cannot be properly treated in the conventional steady state analysis. In constructing a full-vehicle, validation process is essential. Validation process is applied with respect to the assembling sequence. The validation starts with component levels such as tires, springs, shock absorbers, and a powertrain, and then the full-vehicle model is constructed. Model validation is done in two aspects; one is model accuracy and the other is model efficiency.

As automotive technology has been developed, gear whine has become a prominent contributor for cabin noise as the masking has been decreased. Whine is not the loudest source, but it is of high tonal noise which is often highly unpleasant. The gear noise originates at gear mesh. Transmission Error acts as an excitation source and these vibrations pass through gears, shafts and bearings to the housing which vibrates to produce noise on surrounding air. As microgeometry optimization target to reduce the fundamental excitation source of the noise, it has been favored method to tackle gear whine noise, especially for manual transmission. However, practicality of microgeometry optimization for the planetary gear system has been still in question, because of complex system structure and interaction among multi mesh gear sets make it hard to predict and even harder to improve. In this paper, successful case of whine noise improvement by microgeometry is presented.

In terms of reducing the gear noise of automatic transmission, improvement of heat treatment distortion of the annulus gear is very important, because annulus gear is very sensitive heat treatment due to thin walled ring-like shape. Nitriding is very effective method to meet the both requirements for heat treatment distortion and durability of the annulus gear, as compared with conventional carburizing. However, conventional nitriding has problems to be applied for annulus gear, such as brittleness of compound layer and low adhesion strength between compound layer and matrix. In this research, we developed the high toughness nitriding and greatly improved the problems as mentioned above, by controlling gas pressure and temperature.

For the lightweight and compact cylinder block, new cast iron liner was developed, which has counter spiny form on the out side of the liner. Additionally, the outer surface was spray-coated with Aluminum in order to enhance the heat conductivity and to increase the grip force between the liner and the block. Without any redesign of cylinder block or crankshaft, the displacement of the engine could be increased from 1.25ℓ to 1.4ℓ by adapting this new liner only. This liner enabled to expand the engine displacement without both great dimension changes and production facility changes.

An engineering strategy to develop a new 27-ton dump truck is introduced in the process of design and analysis. Main engineering concerns in development of the new dump truck are focused on reducing weight as much as 180kg without deteriorating structural strength and fatigue life of its upper body - deck and subframe. To achieve this goal, a stress analysis and a fatigue life prediction based on CAE technique are employed at the early stage of design process. A finite element model of the full vehicle was constructed for the strength analysis. Then the fatigue life was predicted through the strength analysis and an S-N curve of high strength steel. The S-N curve for welded structures made of high strength steel was used along with a prototype vehicle's endurance test in order to set strength targets. As a result, the upper body was successfully developed without any fatigue issues.

In order to cope with new exhaust emission regulations, automotive industry is interested in research and development of HSDI (High Speed Direct Injection) diesel engines with common rail systems. Since HSDI diesel engine operates under highly loaded condition due to increased power output, cylinder head of HSDI diesel engine is susceptible to high cycle fatigue cracks. In this study, FE analysis was used to find the mechanism of high cycle fatigue crack in the HSDI diesel cylinder head. In order to improve the durability of HSDI diesel cylinder head, the modifications of cylinder head and head bolt pre-load were investigated. Experiments were performed to prove the existence of residual stress created during the heat treatment of cylinder head. The results of experiments showed that residual stress can affect the durability of HSDI diesel cylinder head.

A module based IPS (Intelligent Power Switch) evaluation system is proposed in this paper. As the IPS is gradually replacing the conventional relay and fuses, the stability and reliability of power system depends more on these IPS. The proposed IPS evaluation system outperforms the conventional manual evaluation in terms of speed and efficiency. This paper will introduce the structure of hardware and software of the IPS evaluation system. The system is placed between the module and cable connector to evaluate the module in an operating car without changing the cables. The control and signal processing is carried out by personal computer which is connected to the evaluation system by USB (Universal Serial Bus). The load resistance can be switch from actual load to arbitrary value using relay circuitry and DC electric load controlled by GPIB (General Purpose Interface Bus). CAN (Controller Area Network) circuits were added to control the IPS mounted inside the module.