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Diesel engines, especially CR (Common Rail) DI (Direct Injection) TCI (Turbo Charged Inter-cooled), share a wide acceptance in the passenger car market due to the enormous torque and flexibility at low engine speed. A pre - condition for the use of a diesel engine in a motorcycle is that the disadvantages like combustion noise and visible smoke are reduced or eliminated. Moreover the fuel economy and performance characteristics of a diesel engine are dedicated to be used in a touring or large displacement motorcycle. The AVL engine concept is the first high performance diesel engine to be specially designed for motorcycles in terms of packaging and styling. To compensate for the limited engine speed range a gearbox with a wide ratio spread is required. This leads to a manual transmission with at least 6 gears or an automatic transmission. For the AVL concept an AMT (Automated Manual Transmission) was selected.

Flexibility, oil resistance, and the need for heat resistance to 150°C-plus temperatures have traditionally limited automotive design engineers to two options - thermoset rubber or heat-shielding conventional thermoplastic elastomers (TPE). Both of these options present limitations in part design, the ability to consolidate the number of components in a part of assembly, and on total cost. This paper presents a class of high-performance, flexible thermoplastic elastomers based on dynamically vulcanized polyacrylate (ACM) elastomer dispersed in a continuous matrix of polyamide (PA) thermoplastic. These materials are capable of sustained heat resistance to 150°C and short-term heat resistance to 175°C, without requiring heat shielding. Recent advancements in blow molding and functional testing of the PA//ACM TPEs for automotive air management (ducts) and underhood sealing applications will be shown.

General Motors Powertrain Division has developed the next generation big block V8 engine for introduction in the 1996 model year. In addition to meeting tighter emission and on-board diagnostic legislation, this engine evolved to meet both customer requirements and competitive challenges. Starting with the proven dependability of the time tested big block V8, goals were set to substantially increase the power, torque, fuel economy and overall pleaseability of GM's large load capacity gasoline engine. The need for this new engine to meet packaging requirements in many vehicle platforms, both truck and OEM, as well as a requirement for minimal additional heat rejection over the engine being replaced, placed additional constraints on the design.

General Motors Powertrain Group (GMPTG) has developed an all new small block V8 engine, designated LS1, for introduction into the 1997 Corvette. This engine was designed to meet both customer requirements and competitive challenges while also meeting the ever increasing legislated requirements of emissions and fuel economy. This 5.7L V8 provides increased power and torque while delivering higher fuel economy. In addition, improvements in both QRD and NVH characteristics were made while meeting packaging constraints and achieving significant mass reductions.

As part of the 1997 Propane Vehicle Challenge, a team of twelve UTEP students converted a 1996 Dodge Grand Caravan with a 3.3 L V6 engine to dedicated Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) operation according to the 1997 Propane Vehicle Challenge (PVC) competition rules (16). The 1997 UTEP team developed an LPG liquid phase port fuel injection (LPP-FI) system for the minivan. The UTEP design strategy combines simplicity and sound engineering practices with the effective use of heat resistant materials to maintain the LPG in the liquid phase at temperatures encountered in the fuel delivery system. The team identified two options for fuel storage with in-tank fuel pumps. The competition vehicle incorporates a five-manifold eight inch diameter Sleegers Engineering LPG tank fitted with a Walbro LPTS in-tank pump system, providing a calculated range of 310 city miles and 438 highway miles.

After the first appearance of LED rear lamps, which employed mainly two-dimensional arrays of LEDs, the request of stylists and OEMs to have three-dimensional LED alignment has increased strongly. Development of more powerful LEDs and new packaging and assembly technologies now allows for a three-dimensional assembly of the LEDs, giving an impression of depth and enabling the LEDs to follow even extreme curvatures. This gives great customer satisfaction in terms of styling, but the disadvantage is that the cost for the three-dimensional LED alignment increases significantly. To counteract this development, we have developed a light guide technology approach (so-called 2.5 D) to combine a cost efficient LED assembly process with the flexibility of a 3 D arrangement of the light sources. Thus, we can use standard planar FR4 (Flame Resistant 4) LED printed circuit boards with arbitrary LEDs and do not depend on a certain assembly technology.

Electrical Air Conditioning Systems for 42 V vehicles will provide many benefits in terms of Environment protection, car Architecture, cabin Comfort and overall Safety. E-A/C Systems essentially differ from conventional ones by the use of electrical compressors. First of all, they will be particularly well adapted to new powertrains, helping to make them more environmentally friendly. Accurate control and high efficiency under the most common thermal conditions will reduce the A/C impact on fuel consumption. Besides, higher sealing integrity will cut emissions of refrigerant during normal operation and maintenance. Secondly, the use of an electrically driven compressor (EDC) will suppress a belt, and will reduce the packaging constraints. This will help to design new vehicle architectures. Thirdly, the electrification of air conditioning will allow better thermal comfort. In particular, E-A/C Systems provide a good opportunity for cabin pre-conditioning.

Engines are assigned big subjects such as low emission and low fuel consumption as well as higher output (higher efficiency) in the latest trend of environmental protection. In order to meet these requirements, Air/Fuel ratio of recent high performance engines is being arranged leaner than that of conventional engines. As a result exhaust valve seat inserts used in these engines have problems of their wear resistance because of high exhaust gas temperature. By analyzing wear mechanism under the lean burn conditions, authors developed material for exhaust valve seat inserts which show superior wear resistance under high operating temperature. For the purpose to enhance heat resistance, authors added alloy steel powder for matrix powder and used hard particles which have good diffusion with matrix. The developed material does not include Ni and Co powders for cost saving and has superior machinability.

A catalyzed hydrocarbon (HC) trap aiming at the super-ultra low emission vehicle (SULEV) regulation was developed using a metal-impregnated zeolite. To enhance the adsorption and to raise the desorption temperature for a wide range of HC species, the modification of zeolite with certain metals was needed and Ag was found to be the most promising. Using a Ag impregnated zeolite, a three way catalyst was prepared, and its HC purification ability for a model gas simulating cold-start HCs was studied. Its heat resistance was also examined. A vehicle test for a fresh catalyzed HC trap showed that the cold-start HC after the newly developed trap almost reached the SULEV regulation level.

In practical applications of ammonia SCR aftertreatment systems using urea as the reductant storage compound, one major difficulty is the often constrained packaging envelope. As a consequence, complete mixing of the urea solution into the exhaust gas stream as well as uniform flow and reductant distribution profiles across the catalyst inlet face are difficult to achieve. This paper discusses a modeling approach, where a combination of 3D CFD and a lumped parameter SCR model enables the prediction of system performance, even with non-uniform exhaust flow and ammonia distribution profiles. From the urea injection nozzle to SCR catalyst exit, each step in the modeling process is described and validated individually. Finally the modeling approach was applied to a design study where the performance of a range of urea-exhaust gas mixing sections was evaluated.

This paper introduces for the first time a fully connectorized passive optical star for use with plastic optical fiber that addresses all automotive application requirements. A unique mixing element is presented that offers linear expandability, uniformity of insertion loss, and packaging flexibility. The star is constructed of all plastic molded components to make it low cost and produceable in high volume and is single-ended to facilitate vehicle integration. The star is connectorized to facilitate assembly into the vehicle power and signal distribution system.

Experience tells us that one can develop a technically comfortable seat where the seat fits and supports the occupant. The pressure distribution is optimized and the seat and packaging are such that a good posture is attainable by many. The dynamic characteristics of the seat and the vehicle are technically good. Despite all this the customer is not satisfied. Despite it being a technically comfortable seat, it does meet the customers' expectations and/or priorities and thus the comfort provided is lacking. This paper seeks to explore that gap between the seat and the user by modeling comfort using techniques similar to those found in the social sciences where models often focus on user or individual behavior. The model is built upon but diverges from the Cobb Douglas consumer utility model found in economics. It is presented as theory and presents a very different perspective on comfort.

This paper is a discussion of the relative merits of the front, mid and rear engined car concepts. After discussing some basic packaging considerations, and implications in respect of legislation, the authors make comparisons of performance potential in respect of traction and aerodynamics. Limiting power weight ratios are derived. Primary and secondary ride implications are reviewed and effects on braking are mentioned. Steering and cornering characteristics are assessed by first establishing correlation between prediction and measurement using actual vehicles. Means of simplifying the prediction of steady state steering characteristics are described. Two “model” cars of front and mid engined configuration are then used to predict the steady state and dynamic steering consequences of various specification changes and some conclusions are drawn as to inherent differences.

The increasing use of embedded electronics in aerospace and automotive vehicles increases the designers' concern regarding the reliability of the components as well as the reliability of their interconnections. The discussion about the most appropriate method for assessing the reliability of solder joints for a given application is an ever-present theme in the literature. Several methods of prediction have been developed for assessing the reliability of solder joints. The standard method established by the industries for assessing reliability of solder joints is the thermal cycling. However, when the thermal distributions in real applications are studied, particularly in some electronic components used in on-board electronics of space systems, the thermal cycling does not represent what actually happens in practice in the packaging.

The introduction of drive-by-wire systems into modern vehicles has generated new challenges for the designers of embedded systems. These systems, based primarily on microcontrollers, need to achieve very high levels of reliability and availability, but also have to satisfy the strict cost and packaging constraints of the automotive industry. Advances in VLSI technology have allowed the development of single-chip systems, but have also increased the rate of intermittent and transient faults that come as a result of the continuous shrinkage of the CMOS process feature size. This paper presents a low-cost, fault-tolerant system-on-chip architecture suitable for drive-by-wire and other safety-related applications, based on a triple-modular-redundancy configuration at the processor execution pipeline level.

This paper describes the joint effort between Ford Motor Company, Special Vehicle Operations (SVO), and Roush Industries to investigate the feasibility of making a production Ford 4.6L 4-Valve Modular V8 Engine into a 600 BHP road racing engine. All areas of the production engine design were addressed due to the anticipated increase in power and engine speed. No attempt was made to obtain race level durability or specific vehicle packaging. The test results showed that the objective power level was achieved at lower than anticipated engine speed. In addition, the torque values and band width were consistent with current road racing engine performance levels. In summary, the Ford 4.6L 4-Valve Modular V8 Engine can be developed into a competitive road racing engine. See FIGURE A.

There are several reasons why it can be daunting to apply Six Sigma to product creation. Foremost among them, the functional performance of new technologies is unknown prior to starting a project. Although, Design For Six Sigma (DFSS) was developed to overcome this difficulty, a lack of applicable in-class case studies makes it challenging to train the product creation community. The current paper describes an in-class project which illustrates how Six Sigma is applied to a simulated product creation environment. A toy construction set (TCS) project is used to instruct students how to meet customer expectations without violating cost, packaging volume and design-complexity constraints.

Rotary position sensors (RPS) currently are applied widely in engine management systems for throttle position sensing and are being considered for other applications such as drive-by-wire. The potentiometer RPS relies on contact between a resistive element and a wiper and thus has an inherent wear mechanism. This paper describes a noncontacting RPS which is essentially a drop-in replacement for the present device. A linear output Hall Effect IC is key to achieving the required functionality, but it must be combined with a magnetic actuation scheme which provides a very linear and stable magnetic field as a function of input angle and packaging which provides long life and control of mechanical tolerances. Each of these design elements will be discussed.

A new heat resistant aluminized steel, trade named ALUMA-TI, has been developed which has unique mechanical and corrosion properties especially attractive for high temperature applications where economy is a prime consideration for material selection. Presented are its mechanical properties and response to various corrosive environments. High temperature strength and oxidation resistance is far superior to Type I ALUMINIZED steel at temperatures above 704°C (1300°F). In combined oxidation/corrosion tests, ALUMA-TI is comparable to AISI 409 stainless steel. Therefore, ALUMA-TI is a prime material candidate for automotive exhaust systems.

Vehicle packaging is an important and portal phase during the vehicle design cycle. The design task of vehicle packaging can be considered as the process of packaging the main components in their appropriate positions, which should provide harmonious relationships with each other, and guarantee the vehicle's performance requirements in a specific environment. In the traditional design, from the initial conditions to a satisfactory result, it will take a long time even under the advanced CAD environment. Incorporating the state-of-the-art knowledge based engineering technology into the design process to provide rapid and optimal design abilities. The design system flow can be outlined as four steps as: specification, customization, assessment, and inference. The design system mechanism is a typical KBE running mechanism. Audi 100 model is used to verify this design system.