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The Multi Material Lightweight Vehicle (MMLV) developed by Magna International and Ford Motor Company is a result of a US Department of Energy project DE-EE0005574. The project demonstrates the lightweighting potential of a five passenger sedan, while maintaining vehicle performance and occupant safety. Prototype vehicles were manufactured and limited full vehicle testing was conducted. The MMLV vehicle design, comprised of commercially available materials and production processes, achieved a 364kg (23.5%) full vehicle mass reduction, enabling the application of a 1.0-liter three-cylinder engine resulting in a significant environmental benefit and fuel reduction. The three key requirements of structural performance evaluation for vehicle development are NVH, durability and safety.

The exhaust blowdown pulse from each cylinder of a multi-cylinder engine propagates through the exhaust manifold and can affect the in-cylinder pressure of other cylinders which have open exhaust valves. Depending on the firing interval between cylinders connected to the same exhaust manifold, this blowdown interference can affect the exhaust stroke pumping work and the exhaust pressure during overlap, which in turn affects the residual fraction in those cylinders. These blowdown interference effects are much greater for a turbocharged engine than for one which is naturally aspirated because the volume of the exhaust manifolds is minimized to improve turbocharger transient response and because the turbines restrict the flow out of the manifolds. The uneven firing order (intervals of 90°-180°-270°-180°) on each bank of a 90° V8 engine causes the blowdown interference effects to vary dramatically between cylinders.

This paper describes the rapid development of the Ford GT transmission, from concept phase to production, where the technical challenges involved are implicit in the specifications provided. It presents the steps taken at a project management level to expedite development, as well as the tools used to design and rate components at the design stage. Examples of concurrent engineering are given as well as management techniques used to predict and address key risks. In addition, details of analysis and test procedures are given, underlining their contribution to the rapid introduction of the transmission to the market place.

This paper describes the results of an experiment concerning driver behavior in car following tasks. The motivation for this experiment was a desire to understand typical driver car following behavior as a guide for setting the automatic control characteristics of an ACC (Adaptive Cruise Control) system. Testing was conducted under both test track and open road driving conditions. The results indicate that car following is carried out under much lower bandwidth conditions than typical steering processes. Dynamic analysis shows driver time delay in response to lead vehicle velocity change on the order of several seconds. Typical longitudinal acceleration distributions show standard deviations of less than 0.05 g (acceleration due to gravity).

The recent trends of increasing driveline torque and use of traction control devices call for increasingly higher durability capacity from driveline components. Bench and vehicle durability tests are often used to validate designs, but they are not cost-effective and take months to complete. Traditional finite element analysis (FEA) procedures have been used effectively in the re-design of driveline components to reduce stress, and occasionally, to predict fatigue life. But in the case of certain rotating components, such as the Axle Differential Case, where the component sees large stress/strain fluctuations within the course of one complete rotation, even under constant input torque, historical fatigue analysis (when conducted) yields very conservative results. The axle differential case tends to be one of the weakest links in the rear axle assembly. Therefore, there is a crucial need for analytical methods to more accurately predict fatigue life to reduce testing time and cost.

Modern project management including brake testing includes the exchange of reliable results from different sources and different locations. The ISO TC22/SWG2-Brake Lining Committee established a task force led by Ford Motor Co. to determine and analyze root causes for variability during dynamometer brake performance testing. The overall goal was to provide guidelines on how to reduce variability and how to improve correlation between dynamometer and vehicle test results. This collaborative accuracy study used the ISO 26867 Friction behavior assessment for automotive brake systems. Future efforts of the ISO task force will address NVH and vehicle-level tests. This paper corresponds to the first two phases of the project regarding performance brake dynamometer testing and presents results, findings and conclusions regarding repeatability (within-lab) and reproducibility (between-labs) from different laboratories and different brake dynamometers.

Chapters written by professional and academic experts in the field cover: analytical modeling and analysis, CEA modeling and numerical methods, techniques for dynamometer and road test evaluation, critical parameters that contribute to brake squeal, robust design processes to reduce/prevent brake squeal via up-front design, and more.

A new diesel engine, called the 6.7L Power Stroke® V-8 Turbo Diesel, and code named "Scorpion," was designed and developed by Ford Motor Company for the full-size pickup truck and light commercial vehicle markets. The combustion system includes the piston bowl, swirl level, number of nozzle holes, fuel spray angle, nozzle tip protrusion, nozzle hydraulic flow, and nozzle-hole taper. While all of these parameters could be explored through extensive hardware testing, 3-D CFD studies were utilized to quickly screen two bowl concepts and assess their sensitivities to a few of the other parameters. The two most promising bowl concepts were built into single-cylinder engines for optimization of the rest of the combustion system parameters. 1-D CFD models were used to set boundary conditions at intake valve closure for 3-D CFD which was used for the closed-cycle portion of the simulation.

Several types of hybrid-electric vehicles have been developed at Ford Research Laboratory. Among the parallel hybrid systems with a single electric motor, two types were studied. In the first type, the electric motor was attached directly to the crankshaft (mild hybrid) [1], to enable the engine start-stop and regeneration functions. In the second type (full hybrid) the electric motor was connected to the engine through the use of a clutch to allow electric launch of the vehicle and pure electric driving at low speeds. The full hybrid powertrain described in this paper uses a more powerful electric motor for enhanced regenerative braking and engine power assist. An engine-disconnecting clutch saves energy during both the electric propulsion and during vehicle braking. When the clutch is disengaged the engine is shut-off, which eliminates the energy otherwise spent on motoring the engine during electric propulsion.