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Government regulations restrict the evaporative emissions during refueling to 0.20 grams per gallon of dispensed fuel. This requires virtually all of the vapors generated and displaced while refueling to be stored onboard the vehicle. The refueling phenomenon of spitback and early-clickoff are also important considerations in designing refueling systems. Spitback is fuel bursting past the nozzle and into the environment and early-clickoff is the pump shutoff mechanism being triggered before the tank is full. Development of a new refueling system design is required for each vehicle as packaging requirements change. Each new design (or redesign) must be prototyped and tested to ensure government regulations and customer satisfaction criteria are satisfied. Often designs need multiple iterations, costing money and time in prototype-based validation procedures. To conserve resources, it is desired to create a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tool to assist in design validation.

A study is presented in which light-weight composite materials are used for an engine intake valve. This paper is an interim progress report and documents the successful demonstration of a net-shape, resin transfer molded intake valve in a running engine. A short review of a previous dynamic model is presented showing the advantages in engine performance by using the composite valves. It is shown that the use of reduced mass composite valves allows for increased engine speed and/or more aggressive cam profiles without sacrificing valve strength or stiffness while at the same time maintaining reliable operation. The use of composite materials allows for a significant weight reduction compared to more conventional materials such as steel and titanium. A brief review of the use of composite materials is presented. The development and design process for carbon fiber reinforced valves is discussed.

The design of vehicles, particularly hybrid and other advanced technology vehicles, is typically complex and benefits from systems engineering processes. Vehicle modeling and simulation have become increasingly important system design tools to improve the accuracy, repeatability, and flexibility of the design process. In developing vehicle computational models and simulation, there is an inevitable compromise between the level of detail and the development/computational cost. The tradeoff is specific to the requirements of each vehicle design effort. The assumptions and detail limitations used for vehicle simulations lead to a varying degree of result uncertainty for each design effort. This paper provides a literature review to investigate the state of the art vehicle simulation methods, and quantifies the uncertainty associated with components that are commonly allocated uncertainty.

There are many design parameters in designing multi-element racecar wings even after the airfoil to be used has been determined. To choose the best parameter values for the wings of a Formula SAE car, Computational Fluid Dynamics combined with highly fractional factorial design of experiments was used. The CFD results were analyzed for the effectiveness of each parameter in increasing the down force, and effective parameters were used for the next CFD analyses with a fractional factorial design for choosing the best parameter values. The designed wings satisfied the target performance criteria.

The environmental implications of converting vehicles powered by Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) to battery powered and hybrid battery/ICE powered are evaluated for the case of Chile, one of the worldwide leaders in the production of lithium (Li) required for manufacturing of Li-ion batteries. The economic and environmental metrics were evaluated by techno-economic analysis (TEA) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools - SuperPro Designer and Gabi®/GREET® models. The system boundary includes both the renewable and nonrenewable energy sources available in Chile and well-to-pump energy consumptions and GHG emissions due to Li mining and Li-ion battery manufacturing. All the major input data required for TEA and LCA were generated using Autonomie vehicle modeling software. This study compares economic and environmental indicators of three vehicle models for the case of Chile including compact, mid-size, and a light duty truck.

EcoCAR 3 is a university based competition with the goal of hybridizing a 2016 Chevrolet Camaro to increase fuel economy, decrease environmental impact, and maintain user acceptability. To achieve this goal, university teams across North America must design, test, and implement automotive systems. The Colorado State University (CSU) team has designed a parallel pretransmission plug in hybrid electric design. This design will add torque from the engine and motor onto a single shaft to drive the vehicle. Since both the torque generating devices are pre-transmission the torque will be multiplied by both the transmission and final drive. To handle the large amount of torque generated by the entire powertrain system the vehicle's rear half-shafts require a more robust design. Taking advantage of this, the CSU team has decided to pursue the use of composites to increase the shaft's robustness while decreasing component weight.