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Tailgate stoppers play vital role in exerting preload on the Tailgate latch mechanism and also restrict the relative motion of the Tailgate against vehicle Body in White (BIW). These stoppers act as over-slam dampeners and reduce the transmissibility of vibrations thereby reduce the risk of Squeaks & Rattles (S&R) noises. S&R noises from Tailgate are most annoying to the rear passengers in the vehicle and are recurring in nature. Preventing these issues during design is a challenging task. S&R risk simulations enable us to conduct virtual Design of Experiments (DOEs) and arrive at optimal solutions. This approach helps in reducing the cost of the design changes that are required in the physical prototype at the later stages of product development and save time. The risk evaluation in the simulations is based on the relative displacement at the interfaces of two components.

The main objective of the exhaust system is to offer a leakage proof, noise proof, safe route for exhaust gases from engine to tailpipe, where they are released into the environment, while also processing them to meet the emission norms. New stringent emission norms demand ‘near-zero’ leakage exhaust systems, throughout vehicle life bringing the joints into focus as they are highly susceptible to leakage. Needless to say, this necessitates them to endure not only structural but also the environmental loads, throughout their life. Thus, the fatigue life or durability tests become the most critical part of the exhaust system development. Test acceleration and result correlation (for life prediction), to meet the stringent project timelines and stricter environmental norms are the key considerations for developing a new testing methodology. Quality of accelerated tests is ensured by deploying all possible multiple loads, to simulate real-life conditions.

Automotive door seal has an important function which is used extensively where interior of the vehicle is sealed from the environment. Problem with door seal system design will cause water leakage, wind noise, hard opening or closing of doors, gap and flushness issue which impair customer’s satisfaction of the vehicle. Moreover, improper design of seal can lead to difficulty in installation of door seal on body panel. The design prudence and manufacturing process are important aspect for the functionality and performance of sealing system. However, the door sealing system involves many design and manufacturing variables. At the early design stage, it is difficult to quantify the effect of each of the multiple design variables. As there are no physical prototypes during rubber profile beading-out stages, engineers need to carry out non-linear numerical simulations that involve complex phenomena as well as static and dynamic loads for door seal.

The recent vehicle development demands for electric powertrain as against conventional fuels engines. The electric powertrain offers advantages in terms of cleaner and quieter operations. In electric vehicle, the conventional engine is replaced by electric motor operated on batteries. Here, the conventional engine refers to those powered by diesel, petrol, CNG and some hybrid vehicles using fuel as primary source for power generation. Thus, the system design approach for mount also changes. At present, various approaches are being followed to mount electric powertrain like conventional pendulum type, with or without cradle, Common or different motor and electric box mountings etc. The electric powertrain differs from conventional powertrain in terms of weights, mass moment of inertia, torque, NVH requirements like Key in Key off, idling, low frequency vibrations etc. Thus conventional mount will not necessarily meet NVH requirements for Electric powertrains.

The automotive sector is going through a phase of stiff competition among various Original Equipment Manufacturers for increasing their profitability while ensuring highest levels of customer satisfaction. The biggest challenge for such companies lies in minimizing their overall cost involving investments in Research and Development, manufacturing, after sales service and warranty costs. Higher warranty costs not only affect the net profit but in turn it also affects the brand image of the company to a large extent in the long run. An effort is made here to target such warranty costs due to frequent tail pinion and hub seal leakages on single reduction/hub reduction axles of Heavy Commercial Vehicles in the field. A preliminary study involving the severity analysis of such failures is followed by a step by step investigation of these failures.

Today's automotive industry demands high quality component as well as system designs within very short period of time to provide more value added features to customers on one hand and to meet stringent safety standards on the other. To reconcile economy issues, design optimization has become a key issue. In the last few decades, many OEMs took to analytical tools like Computer-Aided-Engineering (CAE) tools in order to decrease the number of prototype builds and to speed up the time of development cycle. Although such analytical tools are relatively inexpensive to use and faster to implement as compared to the costly traditional design and testing processes: however, there are many variables that CAE tools cannot adequately consider, such as manufacturing processes, assembly, material anisotropy and residual stresses. Therefore, still smart measuring and testing techniques are required to substantiate the CAE results.

Interdependency of automotive transmission aggregates on electrical/ electronics systems is increasing day by day, offering more comfort and features. For a system integrator, it becomes very much important while selecting/designing any such component to take into consideration the relationship between such interdependent components from performance as well as endurance point of view. DMF failures due to inadequate starting system, is a major stumbling block in development of DMF for a particular vehicle application. The interface of DMF and starting system of a vehicle makes it essential to consider the effect of one on another. The study shows that the majority of DMF failures happen because of resonance phenomenon in the DMF during engine starting. The improper selection of starter motor makes the DMF more vulnerable for such failures.

Apart from being an active safety system the brake system represents an important aspect of the vehicle dynamics. The vehicle retardation and stopping distance completely depend upon the performance of brake system and the functionality of all components. However, the performance prediction of the entire system is a challenging task especially for a complex configuration such as multi-axial vehicle applications. Furthermore, due to its complexity most often the performance prediction by some methods is limited to static condition. Hence, it is very important to have equivalent mathematical models to predict all performance parameters for a given configuration in all different conditions This paper presents the adopted system modelling approach to model all the elements of the pneumatic brake system such as dual brake valve, relay valve, quick release valve, front and rear brake actuators, foundation brake etc.

The present research deals with study of pongamia oil methyl ester as a lubricant by blending with anti-wear additive ZDDP. The experimental work carried in this work aims to investigates the friction and wear characteristics by blending zinc diakyldithio phosphates (ZDDP) with pongamia oil methyl ester as lubricant under various loading conditions and temperatures. The coefficient of friction and wear scar depth were determined using pongamia biodiesel blended with 0.3%, 0.6% and 1 % ZDDP by concentration through high frequency reciprocating wear testing machine for 2 h duration. The reciprocating wear tests were performed on an engine liner-piston ring contact under the loads of 40 N, 60 N and 80 N for 2 h duration at temperatures of 100°C, 125°C 150° C with 10 Hz oscillation frequency. The addition of ZDDP with pongamia biodiesel showed marginal reduction in friction coefficient and wear scar depth under all loads and temperatures.

Direct Metal Deposition (DMD) is a rapid prototyping technique used to fabricate and repair metallic prototypes. It can be used in the production of complex geometries and unique parts. In functional automotive applications wear characteristics hold key importance. In the present study, an analysis on the influence of various parameters (coating thickness, load and temperature) on the wear characteristics of Direct Metal Deposited (DMD) Inconel 625 coating has been carried out using a Design of Experiments (DOE). ANOVA calculations were performed to find out which of these parameters showed significant influence on the wear properties. It was found that load was the most significant parameter influencing the wear characteristics .Similarly load was found to be most influencing parameter for co efficient of friction. The trend was found to follow when verified at 30 second, 3 minutes, 60 minutes and 120 minutes.

The main objective of the study is to design and analyze casing and supports of a transmission system for an electric vehicle. The system comprises of motors as the power source, constant mesh gear box coupled with limited slip differential as the power transmitting source. The space occupied by the transmission system is a foremost constraint in designing the system. The wear and tear in the system is caused by the gear meshing process and transmission error which lead to failure of the transmission system. This internal excitation also produces a dynamic mesh force, which is transmitted to the casing and mounts through shafts and bearings. In order to overcome such issues in a transmission system, a gear box casing, differential mounts and motor mounts have been designed by the use of CAD-modeling software “SOLIDWORKS”. The designs were imported to FEA software “ANSYS” for carrying out static structural analysis.

The infliction of rigorous emission norms across the world has made the automobile industry to focus and dwell upon researches to reduce the emissions from internal combustion engines, namely diesel engines. Variation in fuel injection timing has better influence on reduction of engine exhaust emissions. This papers deals with the variation of fuel injection timing along with fuel injection pressure numerically on a 4 stroke, single cylinder, and direct injection diesel engine running at full load condition using CONVERGE CFD tool. As the piston and bowl geometry considered in this work is symmetric, only 60 degree sector of the piston cylinder assembly is considered for numerical simulation over complete 360 degree model.

The present work is concentrated to study the effect of varying inlet pressures on the dynamics of the suction valve obtained from a hermetic reciprocating compressor. The effect of valve functioning on the efficiency of a compressor is highly acceptable. Rather than the delivery valve, the suction valve has a significant impact on the compressor efficiency. The reed valve in a hermetic compressor is a cantilever type arrangement. The valve operates due to the pressure difference between the suction muffler and the cylinder. The numerical analysis which includes Fluid-structure interaction is used in the present study. The flow and structural domain employed in the present study are modelled with Solidworks 15.0. The fluid structure interaction analysis is a combination of ANSYS Fluent and ANSYS structural. These two are coupled with a system coupling in ANSYS Workbench 16.0. The numerical results obtained from the simulation are validated with the experimental data.

Electrical and Series Hybrid Vehicles are generally provided with single speed reduction gearbox. To improve performance and drive range, a two-speed gearbox with coordinated control of traction motor and gearshift actuator is proposed. For a two-speed gearbox, gearshift without clutch would increase the shifting effort. Active Synchronization is introduced for a smoother gearshift even without clutch. The quality of gearshift is considered as a function of applied shift force and time taken. To enhance the quality of the gearshift further, the location of the synchronizer in the transmission system is optimized. To validate the improvement in the quality of the gearshift, a mathematical model of the two-speed gearbox incorporating proposed location of synchronizer assembly along with active synchronization is developed. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of the results achieved is presented.

As the automobile industry in India is growing fast and competitive, there is a need to design the vehicle and its parts at most cost effective. This paper gives the details of design optimization and cost effective methodology followed to develop a Single Stalk Combination Switch, without degrading the end user delight. This paper describes various design criteria affecting the combination switch design.

In Formula Student, the vehicle working parameters are quite disparate from that of a commercially designed vehicle. The inability of teams to incorporate the atypical running conditions in their design causes multiple unforeseen issues. One such condition where the teams fail to improvise upon is the cooling system. Due to the high performance requirement of the competition, multiple teams participating face recurring heating problems. Maximum efficiency from a combustion vehicle can only be achieved when the cooling system is designed to handle the increasing power demand. This paper brings forth a detailed study on the intricate design of the cooling system. The problem has been approached using both theoretical and simulation models. Firstly, NTU-ℇ method was used to calculate the overall heat transfer coefficient and the temperature drop through the radiator core.

Basic Function: Vehicle remote is used for vehicle lock/unlock/search/Hazard lights /approach light functions for customer convenience and vehicle security system. Conventional approach: 1 Use of separate RF (Radio Frequency) receiver -Additional Cost impact. 2 High remote RF power - Reduced remote battery life and bigger remote size required 3 High sensitivity RF receiver - High cost. Low Cost approach: It involves the followings: 1 Integration of RF receiver inside the Body Control Module (BCM). 2 Low Power Remote and Optimization of Remote PCB layout to get the maximum power. 3 External wired antenna taken out from BCM and proper routine need be ensured to get the best performance. 4 BCM mounting location to get the best remote range in all vehicle directions. This paper relates to the methodology for low cost approach for the RF communication between remote transmitter and receiver with achieving the best remote performance at vehicle level condition.

Power-supply forms a key hardware block for every automotive ECU. Apart from delivering robust and reliable logic supply voltages it is also burdened with many auxiliary tasks like transient protection, good EMI/EMC performance, Power-hold function, Analog Sensor supply voltage etc. It also needs to meet all automotive norms including short to battery/ground etc. This paper discusses low cost implementation techniques which maximize the value delivered to the vehicle application at minimal cost. Innovative techniques are described for combining sensor and logic supplies wherever applicable. Hurdles faced during such circuit optimization are clearly explained along with the solutions adopted to overcome hurdles yet meeting automotive test norms. A novel low cost concept which combines transient protection as well as power-hold function (without using the conventional relay based technique) further adds value to the end application.

S.A.V.E. (SOLAR-ASSISTED VEHICLE ELECTRICAL SYSTEM) is a microcontroller-based closed loop system designed to optimize the duty cycle of alternator in conventional vehicle electrical system. This has been done by integrating a SOLAR PANEL on the rooftop of a popular hatchback. The SOLAR PANEL supplies continuous power to battery for charging thereby reducing alternator duty cycle. Consequently, in order to optimize/control alternator functioning based on demand, a microcontroller has been incorporated. S.A.V.E. consists of a microcontroller which senses the instantaneous electrical load (in terms of current & voltage drawn) from battery. The controller using the intelligent algorithm keeps on checking this real-time consumption with the threshold values & decides when to activate/deactivate alternator. Thus with this controller, a) reduction in actual CO₂ emission & consequent, and b) 6% improvement in vehicle fuel efficiency has been achieved.

Automotive Industry is constantly upgrading the value offered on their products at optimized cost. Scratch and mar resistance of interiors and exterior parts, is an important attribute which is linked to perceived quality and value offered to customers. Polypropylene material is optimum material of choice for these parts due to its unique advantages. However, filled polypropylene material has poor scratch and mar resistance. Many techniques for scratch resistance improvement are available such as additions of slip agents, co additives, special fillers, siloxanes, etc. However, some of them may offer some disadvantages like stickiness or tackiness on the surfaces. The choice depends on its effectiveness & cost. This paper deals with design of experiments to evaluate effectiveness of 4 types of additives and their optimum % to give scratch resistance improvement without having detrimental impact on other critical properties.