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The Electro Gyro-Cator allows a driver to monitor his progress, plot and follow courses to a destination, select alternate routes, and drive more safely on unfamiliar roads or at night. Employing a sealed helium gas-rate gyro, the Electro Gyro-Cator offers visual display (CRT display) of a car's present location, direction and route, with overlay maps for fast, simple route selection and monitoring. The primary elements of the unit include trip and direction sensors, a 16-Bit central processing unit, a CRT display screen and a collection of transparent overlay maps fitted to the screen.

An essential feature of the Audi Quattro permanent four-wheel drive system is in the inter-axle differential located on the hollow output shaft in the gearbox: the drive is taken from this differential forward to the front differential through the inside of the hollow shaft, and rearward to a propellor shaft driving the rear differential. The major advantages in everyday driving include improved traction and a reduced tendency toward throttle induced changes of attitude. The greater traction allows not only better progress in difficult road conditions; it also gives better acceleration in difficult traffic situations, such as when joining a busy main road. The more easily predictable handling response to throttle changes means that Quattro vehicles have better tracking stability. Altogether, the active safety and "roadability" are considerably improved.

Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) are worldwide recognized as one of the best and most immediate opportunities to solve the problems of fuel consumption, pollutant emissions and fossil fuels depletion, thanks to the high reliability of engines and the high efficiencies of motors. Moreover, as transport policy is becoming day by day stricter all over the world, moving people or goods efficiently and cheaply is the goal that all the main automobile manufacturers are trying to reach. In this context, the municipalities are performing their own action plans for public transport and the efforts in realizing high efficiency hybrid electric buses, could be supported by the local policies. For these reasons, the authors intend to propose an efficient control strategy for a hybrid electric bus, with a series architecture for the power-train.

THIS paper deals with the road-test portion of the extensive efforts made during 1937 by the Cooperative Fuel Research Committee to get as precise a correlation as possible between the laboratory knock ratings of automobile fuels and their corresponding ratings in cars on the road. It is anticipated that the comprehensive results of car tests reported here, taken together with the results of the laboratory rating program reported in the companion paper, will serve as the basis of the continuing studies aimed at developing the best possible correlation between road and laboratory knock ratings. Work similar to that reported here has been conducted concurrently in England by the Institution of Petroleum Technologists, using British cars and fuels. An exchange of information between the British and American groups working on this problem is being made.

The size of the 1978 automotive service market is the total dollars spent on car and truck repair and maintenance in 1978. The 1978 personal-use automotive service market is the retail dollars spent in 1978 on repair and maintenance for cars and trucks used primarily for personal transportation. Service market estimates in this report do not include body repair parts and body repairs. Bureau of Economic Analysis data indicate a personal-use service market, excluding do-it-yourself (DIY) service, of $36 billion. A similar estimate made by General Motors Research Laboratories, based on a large national survey of actual consumer expenditures, is $ 37 billion. The personal-use automotive service market, excluding DIY, is roughly 3/4's the size of the total automotive service market, based on data from the Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association and Frost & Sullivan, Inc.

A gasoline Road Octane study was conducted by the Coordinating Research Council (CRC) to evaluate the effects of heavy aromatics (C9 and heavier) and ethanol content on Road Octane performance independent of Research Octane Number (RON) and Motor Octane Number (MON). Maximum-throttle and part-throttle Road ON’s were found to be well predicted by equations containing only RON and MON terms. Heavier aromatics were found to have a small adverse effect on both maximum-throttle and part-throttle Road ON independent of its direct effects on RON and MON. The all-car data did not show a significant ethanol-content effect, but eight of the thirty-seven cars did show significant effects for ethanol content.

The electric power steering (EPS) is increasing its number since there are many advantages compared to hydraulic power steering. The EPS saves fuel and eliminates hydraulic fluid. Also, it is more suitable to the cooperation control with the other vehicle components. The EPS is now expanding to the heavier vehicle with the advance in the power electronics. In order to meet customer's needs, such as down-sizing, lower failure rate and lower price, we have developed the new motor control unit (MCU) for the EPS. The motor and the electric control unit (ECU) were integrated for the better installation. We adopted new technologies of redundant 2-drive design for more safe EPS. “2-drive Motor Control technology” which consists of dual winding, two torque sensors and two inverter drive units. In our developed MCU, even if there is a failure in one of the drive unit, the assistance of the EPS can be maintained with the other drive unit.

This study focuses on variable amplitude loadings applied to automotive chassis parts experiencing carmaker’s specific proving grounds. They are measured with respect to time at the wheel centres and composed of the six forces and torques at each wheel, within the standard vehicle reference frame. In the scope of high cycle fatigue, the loadings considered are supposedly acting under the structure yield stress. Among the loadings encountered during the vehicle lifetime, two classes stand out: Driven Road: loads measured during the vehicle manoeuvre; Random Road: loads mainly coming from the road asperity. To separate both effects, a frequency decomposition method is proposed before applying any lifetime assessment methods. The usual Rainflow counting method is applied to the Driven Road signal. These loadings, depending on the vehicle dynamics, are time-correlated. Thus, the load spectra is set only thanks to the vehicle accelerations time-measurement.

Health related problems in over populated areas are a major concern and as such, there are specific legislations for noise generated by transport vehicles. In diesel powered commercial vehicles, the source for noise are mainly related to rolling, transmission, aerodynamics and engine. Considering internal combustion engine, three factors can be highlighted as major noise source: combustion, mechanical and tailpipe. The tailpipe noise is considered as the noise radiated from the open terminations of intake and exhaust systems, caused by both pressure pulses propagating to the open ends of the duct systems, and by vortex shedding as the burst leaves the tailpipe (flow generated noise). In order to reduce noise generated by vehicles, it is important to investigate the gas interactions and what can be improved in exhaust line design during the product development phase.

Recurrently, the increase in production of high-speed trains worldwide has become a confirmed fact. Seeking to use the high-speed trains locally to link the capital of Egypt “Cairo” with the new industrial cities has become a national requirement. Modeling 3D surface maps using finite element analysis (FEA) is one of the most important mechanical design tools for frictional parts to facilitate the manufacture of brake systems for heavy duty vehicles, especially high-speed trains due to difficult working conditions. In this paper, we presented simulate 3D surface maps for proposed frictional material pad using FEA at certain design parameters and experimental result conductions. The typical surface characteristics of disc brake pad are compared with commonly used materials in railway and vehicle brakes in Egypt.

Many applications of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to commercial vehicles have used their corresponding diesel engine counterparts for their basic architecture. Here a review is made of the application to commercial vehicle operation of a robust 4 L, light-duty, 6-cylinder in-line engine produced by Ford Australia on a unique long-term production line. Since 2000 it has had a dedicated LPG pick-up truck and cab-chassis variant. A sequence of research programs has focused on optimizing this engine for low carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. Best results (from steady state engine maps) suggest reductions in CO₂ emissions of over 30% are possible in New European Drive Cycle (NEDC) light-duty tests compared with the base gasoline engine counterpart. This has been achieved through increasing compression ratio to 12, running lean burn (to λ = 1.6) and careful study (through CFD and bench tests) of the injected LPG-air mixing system.

The measurement of the contact forces between road and tires is of fundamental importance while designing road vehicles. In this paper, the design and the employment of measuring wheels for trucks and heavy vehicles is presented. The measuring wheels have been optimized in order to obtain high stiffness and the approximately the same mass of the wheels normally employed. The proposed multicomponent measuring wheels are high- accuracy instruments for measuring the dynamic loads during handling and durability testing. The measuring wheels can replace the wheels of the truck under normal operation. Such family of wheels plays a major role in modern road vehicles development. The measuring wheel concept design is based on a patented three-spoke structure connected to the wheel rim. The spokes are instrumented by means of strain gauges and the measuring wheel is able to measure the three forces and the three moments acting at the interface between the tire and the road.

This paper describes an advanced vehicle radar system operating at a frequency of 60.5 GHz that has been jointly developed for the Japanese automobile and truck market by Eaton VORAD Technologies of San Diego, California, and Hitachi, Ltd. of Japan. The radar system is used for both collision warning system (CWS) applications and for adaptive cruise control (ACC) applications. The radar system employs monopulse radar technology to measure azimuth angle to each vehicle in the forward direction. The techniques used to reduce cost and complexity of monopulse radar for low cost use on commercial vehicles are described. These techniques combine Doppler radar technology with digitally derived monopulse processing. Japan is the only country that has selected the frequency band of 60 GHz for vehicle radar systems. The reasons for this selection are discussed and the advantages and disadvantages of this frequency band are presented.

SIGNIFICANT REDUCTION IN THE TRANSPORTATION COST PER TON MILE OF BULK PRODUCTS IS ATTAINABLE BY THE PROPER ADAPTATION OF A TRUCK TRAIN TRANSPORT. IMPROVED HAUL ROADS, GREATER DISTANCES, AND INCREASED DEMAND FOR MINE PRODUCTS AT COMPETITIVE PRICES ARE RESULTING IN A RE-EVALUATION OF ALL COST ASPECTS OF MATERIAL MOVEMENT. THE TRUCK TRAIN CONCEPT USING RELATIVELY SMALLER TIRES THAN LARGE PIT TRUCKS OPENS THE DOOR TO REDUCED OPERATING COSTS BY LOWERING CYCLE TIMES AND COST PER MILE OF TIRES AND CAPITAL INVESTMENT.

Automotive radar is one of the most important key technologies in sensors for Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). It is considered very important to conduct analysis of the results which the radar took under various road conditions. In this paper, we shall report the results of a 76GHz automotive millimeter-wave radar using SS modulation technique, which were evaluated on roads under various situations. For example, multi-path was observed from the results that were analyzed from inside a tunnel. We believe that the results are very useful for development of the object discrimination algorithm.

The current work investigates a method in 1D modeling of cooling systems including discretized cooling package with non-uniform boundary conditions. In a stacked cooling package the heat transfer through each heat exchanger depends on the mass flows and temperature fields. These are a result of complex three-dimensional phenomena, which take place in the under-hood and are highly non-uniform. A typical approach in 1D simulations is to assume these to be uniform, which reduces the authenticity of the simulation and calls for additional calibrations, normally done with input from test measurements. The presented work employs 3D CFD simulations of complete vehicle in STAR-CCM+ to perform a comprehensive study of mass-flow and thermal distribution over the inlet of the cooling package of a Volvo FM commercial vehicle in several steady-state operating points.

This paper describes the activities in the area of Squeak & Rattle developed by GM do Brasil at Cruz Alta Proving Ground (CAPG) in the last years. It presents the experimental methods employed to evaluate and eliminate Squeak & Rattle during the development of new vehicles. Emphasis is given to new techniques in the effort made by General Motors worldwide to move from “road to lab”.

A description is given of the wind tunnel installation at M. I. R. A. comprising a full-scale wind tunnel which incorporates a 250 hp roller dynamometer, and a wind tunnel for quarter-scale models. Tests show good correlation between aerodynamic drag in the full-scale tunnel and the road, and between the roller dynamometer and the road, but correlation has not yet been established for other coefficients, or between model and full scale tunnels. Results from the full-scale tunnel show that drag coefficients are tending to rise and the need for careful design is underlined. Results from model tests indicate that drag coefficients can be markedly reduced without sacrificing styling.

A broad look at the Cleveland Transit System inspection program is given, showing the types of inspections performed and the forms that are used with those inspections. The major reports and records of the system are also covered and their use by several echelons of management described. Of special interest is the method used in collecting mileage.