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In order to extend the operability limit of the gasoline compression ignition (GCI) engine, as an avenue for low temperature combustion (LTC) regime, the effects of parametric variations of engine operating conditions on the performance of six-stroke GCI (6S-GCI) engine cycle are numerically investigated, using an in-house 3D CFD code coupled with high-fidelity physical sub-models along with the Chemkin library. The combustion and emissions were calculated using a skeletal chemical kinetics mechanism for a 14-component gasoline surrogate fuel. Authors’ previous study highlighted the effects of the variation of injection timing and split ratio on the overall performance of 6S-GCI engine and the unique mixing-controlled burning mode of the charge mixtures during the two additional strokes. As a continuing effort, the present study details the parametric studies of initial gas temperature, boost pressure, fuel injection pressure, compression ratio, and EGR ratio.

Invisible Passenger-side Airbag (IPAB) door system must be designed with a weakened area such that the airbag will break through the Instrument Panel (IP) in the intended manner, with no flying debris at any temperature. At the same time, there must be no cracking or sharp edges at the head impact test (ECE 21.01). Needless to say, Head impact test must keep pace with the deployment test. In this paper, we suggested soft airbag door system that is integrally molded with a hard instrument panel by using Two-shot molding. First of all, we set up the design parameters of IPAB door for the optimal deployment and head impact performance by CAE analysis. And then we optimized the open-close time at each gate of the mold so that the soft and hard material could be integrally molded with the intended boundary. We could make the boundary of two materials more constant by controlling the open-close time of each gate with resin temperature sensor.

Due to technological evolutions and social demands, motor vehicles are requested to be enhanced in terms of occupant safety and comfort. As a result, many countries are reinforcing crash regulations and new car assessment programs. Automotive seats are essential parts for providing passenger safety and comfort and have become most important. Many automotive companies concentrate on optimization of the seat structure. This paper presents an overview of the recent evolution of the seat structures and gives a development procedure covering seat frame design, optimization and validation. Through the study, a competitive frame design is drawn as a case result and a design guideline and a standard development procedure is established

Acoustics comfort is a key point for the ground transportation market and in particular in the automotive area. A significant contributor to the noise levels in the cabin in the range 200Hz to 3000Hz is the HVAC (Heating, Ventilating, and Air Conditioning) system, consisting of sub-systems such as the air intake duct, thermal mixing unit, blower, ducts, and outlet vents. The noise produced by an HVAC system is mainly due to aeroacoustics mechanisms related to the flow fluctuations induced by the blower rotation. The structure borne noise related to the surface induced vibrations and to the noise transmission through the dash or plastic panels may also contribute but is not considered in this study. This study presents a digital approach for HVAC aeroacoustics noise predictions related to the ducts and outlet vents. In order to validate the numerical method flow and acoustics measurements are performed on production HVAC systems placed in an anechoic room.

Hard panel types of invisible passenger-side airbag (IPAB) door system must be designed with a weakened area such that the airbag will deploy through the Instrument Panel (IP) in the intended manner, with no flying debris at any required operating temperature. At the same time, there must be no cracking or sharp edges in the head impact test (ECE 21.01). If the advanced-airbag with the big difference between high and low deployment pressure ranges are applied to hard panel types of IPAB door system, it becomes more difficult to optimize the tearseam strength for satisfying deployment and head impact performance simultaneously. We introduced the ‘Operating Window’ idea from quality engineering to design the hard panel types of IPAB door applied to the advanced-airbag for optimal deployment and head impact performance. To accurately predict impact performance, it is important to characterize the strain rate.

In this paper, we deal with the automatic climate control for Recreational Vehicle (RV). The HVAC system used for RV was composed of front side and rear side. And, the HVAC system of front side differed from that of rear side in the characteristic of HVAC system. This system was economically optimized for automatic control over 2 separated zones. The development procedure of automatic climate controller was as follows. The first stage was to derive control equation from characteristic analysis of HVAC system and the structural characteristic of vehicle interior. In the second stage, the software (S/W) was designed and programmed to operate microprocessor which calculated previously mentioned equation. Finally, the hardware (H/W) design and building were performed to operate the HVAC system with the calculation results from microprocessor. The control performance of this automatic climate control algorithm and system was evaluated by experimental method.

This paper presents an in-vehicle information system, AVICS in development. With AVICS, the driver could get the various information on traffic, news, weather, restaurants, and so on, which the AVICS information center provides via mobile telecommunication network. The driver requests the information to operator in center by voice with hands-free system or by handling the menu offered in the form of web-page. The in-vehicle unit for AVICS is designed to interface with wireless network with a built-in RF MODEM, to control NAVI system, and to display the information on the LCD monitor of AV system. The Internet browser is customized to parse specific HTML tags, application software is realized on 32-bit RISC processor. In this paper, we will overview the concept of AVICS and focus on development of in-vehicle unit of AVICS.

Hyundai Motor Company has developed hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCV) based on its SUV, Santa Fe. As the hydrogen fuel cell power plant runs at near ambient pressure, parasitic loss due to its operation is fully minimized and the noise level of the air supply subsystem is extremely low. The Santa Fe FCV has been built to feature roomy passenger space and cargo capacity identical to that of a standard, gasoline-powered Santa Fe, because of its compact fuel cell power plant. In addition, lightweight aluminum body-components help to keep a power-to-weight ratio similar to that of a conventional SUV. Hyundai Motor Company, as a full member of California Fuel Cell Partnership, is now operating the Santa Fe FCV's on real roads in California. In this paper, the configuration and performance test results of the Santa Fe FCV will be described.

Invisible Passenger-side Airbag (IPAB) door systems must be designed with a weakened area such that the airbag will break through the Instrument Panel (IP) in the intended manner, with no flying debris at any temperature. A predictive Finite Element Analysis (FEA) was carried out to calculate the effects of varying design factors (the length and thickness of kink-hinge, tear-line type and temperature) on the IPAB-door opening. The impact performance of plastic parts was considered, because the mechanical properties of thermoplastic materials are strongly dependent on strain rate.

Voice Recognition (VR) systems have become an integral part of the infotainment systems in the current automotive industry. However, its recognition rate is impacted by external factors such as vehicle cabin noise, road noise, and internal factors which are a function of the voice engine in the system itself. This paper analyzes the VR performance under the effect of two external factors, vehicle cabin noise and the speakers’ speech patterns based on gender. It also compares performance of mid-level sedans from different manufacturers.

In this project, phenomena in a SCR catalyst, such as heat transfer and catalytic reactions, are modeled numerically. The model is simplified to be integrated on an electronic control unit. The calibration process for this model has been developed, which is performed on gas bench and validated on a vehicle equipped with a Urea-SCR system and a Rapid Prototype Control Unit. With this simplified SCR reaction model, it is possible to estimate NH3 consumption and properly control the urea injection quantity with less calibration efforts.

The paper describes an engineering project carried out to optimize the crashworthiness of an existing passenger car for frontal crash using a procedure relying on numerical simulation. An optimization target is defined in terms of an ideal acceleration pulse at the seats anchors. The acceleration time history and structural members are scanned in parallel to correlate the local acceleration peaks to specific structural members. Members details are iteratively modified in order to alter the accelerations and get closer to the target.

This paper shows the cause and the solution to the uncommon noise which happens ½ order component of engine rpm when a vehicle with automatic transmission has an air conditioning load and “drive” range load on the engine. By measuring cylinder pressure, main bearing cap vibration, engine mount vibration, and interior noise simultaneously, the cause of the noise can be proved by analyzing and comparing the data. The cause of the uncommon noise is bending vibration of the crank shaft. To solve the problem, one can change the crank shaft dynamics by reducing the mass of the damper pulley.

Structure-occupant related method, which uses some structural analysis results for inputs of occupant simulation, has being used widely even if it is difficult to describe real crash precisely. The method is not proper to simulate complex situation such as an occupant behavior restrained with air bag in out-of-position impact. A structure-occupant integrated method is needed to analyze these sophisticated problems in the early stage of design. Therefore, Hyundai Motor Co. tried to develop the method, and the process is described in this paper. The integrated vehicle model includes Hybrid III dummy, air bag, seat belt and interior detail models. The interior detail models are instrument panel, knee bolsters, steering wheel and column, and seats. The part models were compared with the part test results and they were merged into larger models only if they passed correlation test.

To design an optimum engine intake system, a flow model for the intake manifold was developed by the method of characteristics. The flow in the intake manifold was one-dimensional, and finite difference equations were derived from the governing equations of flow. The thermodynamic properties inside a cylinder were found by the first law of thermodynamics, and the boundary conditions were formulated using a steady flow model. By comparing the calculated results with experimental data, the appropriate boundary conditions and convergence limits for a flow model were established. From this model, design variables for the intake system were investigated. The optimum manifold length became shorter when the engine speed were increased. The effect of intake valve timings on inlet air mass was also studied by this model. Advancing intake valve opening decreased inlet air mass slightly, and the optimum intake valve closing was found.

We developed the hard IP (Instrument Panel) that is integrally over molded with a soft layer (TPO, Thermo Plastic Olefin) for the soft feeling and cost reduction. And also we produced the cost-effective PAB(Passenger-side Airbag) door system that had an in-mold tearseam and avoided competitors' patents simultaneously. The development procedure of this technology is; ① Material for overmolding ② Design optimization ③ Solving tool challenges. The reduction of process through integrally molding with soft material helped to accomplish a soft feeling on the IP and cost reduction at the same time. The deployment, head impact and heat aging tests were conducted and 5 patents were applied such as the optimization of the mold structure and injection condition.

The role of a brake disc is to convert the kinetic energy of automobiles into thermal energy caused by friction between the brake pads and disc surfaces. The braking performance of an overheated disc is decreased due to hot judder and fade. Hence, the cooling technology of a brake disc is one of the most important issues related to automobile safety. In the present study, the fluid flow and heat transfer analysis of a ventilated brake disc are conducted numerically. Some geometries of automotive parts such as bearings, hubs and wheels are considered in this study. The commercial code ANSYS CFX is used to simulate the fluid flow and the conjugate heat transfer which includes conduction and convection. To evaluate the cooling performance in each case, the results, including the flow patterns of cooling air inside the wheel and the heat transfer coefficient distribution at the disc surfaces, were investigated and compared for various disc-hub combinations.

Due to improvements in vehicle powertrain performance, friction material fade performance is becoming an important topic. For this reason, needs for studies to improve thermal characteristics of the brake system is increasing. Methods for improving the fade characteristics have several ways to improve the thermal characteristic of friction materials and increase disc capacity. However, increasing disc capacity(size) have some risk of weight and cost rise, and friction factor improvements in friction material tend to cause other problems, such as increasing squeal wire brush noise and increasing metal pick up on disc surface. Therefore, a slot disc study is needed to overcome the problems discussed previously. Currently, there is few research history for slot disc related to fade and metal pickup improvements.

Direct Coating is a new processing technique which applies a single-layer polyurethane coating directly to a plastic part within a 2-shot molding cycle. The advantages of Direct Coating over traditional paint are improved surface quality, scratch resistance, and cost-effective processing. This concept has been previously showcased in high-gloss piano black with the simple geometry of the exterior door garnish. In this paper, the capabilities of Direct Coating are expanded to include metallic pigments and complex geometries for interior trim. For this development project, the Hyundai Sonata center fascia was selected as the target application due to the complex flow geometry around the bezel, and the high occurrence of customer contact, necessitating scratch and chemical resistance. Results of plaque-level testing showed that the coating material passed all requirements, including interior chemical resistance and scratch resistance.

Owing to the enhanced performance of engines these days, more heat should be dissipated in the braking system. Failure of doing this properly causes temperature rise in the brake disc which result in the brake fade, disc distortion, brake judder, etc. A cooling-air-duct was proposed as a solution to prevent these from happening. In this paper, we present our work based on experiments optimized parameters such as direction, location, shapes and the size of the duct for the cooling-air-duct installation in real cars. We installed the duct extended from a front bumper to a rear wheel guard. Experimental parameters were compared with theoretical analysis using the impinging jet analysis. The heat transfer coefficients were determined by using the finite elements method (FEM). We found that our experimental data is supportive of theoretical analysis. We believe that our results should serve an useful guideline for designing the cooling-air-duct for braking system.