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An experimental campaign based on the harness and Event Data Recorder (EDR) of a production vehicle (Toyota Auris 2007, Generation 02EDR) was setup for laboratory experiments. The experiments involved triggering non-deployment events in the EDR by hitting the Airbag Control Module (ACM) with a pendulum style impactor with different pendulum weight, in frontal and rear directions and at different initial angles. The ACM was hit in three different conditions: ACM fixed, ACM free to move and ACM launched towards impactor. The wheel speed sensors were emulated with the same 7/14 mA pulses such that the vehicle was simulated to be moving with a ramping up and down speed during the impact. This was done such that the EDR data has vehicle speed in both its pre and post-crash data. The Bosch Crash Data Retrieval (CDR) tool was used to download the EDR data. Data from these experiments is shown and discussed. An in-house built sniffer was utilized to filter and store the relevant CAN bus data.

Dielectric testing is essential in developing ceramic insulators for spark plugs used in modern engine platforms. Many test methods are developed for different materials and applications. At Autolite, parallel plate dielectric testing based on the ASTM standard was used for material evaluation. The paper will cover the factors that influence the measurements in these tests as well as a comparison of insulator materials from different spark plug manufacturers. Furthermore, to better evaluate the performance of final product, Autolite developed a proprietary engine dielectric test method for spark plugs. The test method is compared with most conventional tests in the automotive industry, and the performance of spark plugs using Autolite conventional and next gen ceramic will be reported.

If a bolted joint is subjected to axial vibration, the internal force the bolt receives is determined based on the load factor that is a function expressed by bolt stiffness and clamped part stiffness. The stiffness of the bolt and clamped part are generally calculated based on VDI2230, but if the structure of the clamped parts is complicated or made of multiple materials, we have to calculate the clamped part stiffness using FE analysis. FE analysis is very useful for calculations of clamped part stiffness. However it is not easy to conduct FE analysis for all parts and structures. A new method to detect clamped part stiffness of bolted joints was developed in this study. The proposed method is based on a clamp force detection method that we had already proposed. In the method, a protruding bolt thread portion is first pulled while holding down the nut’s upper surface and the displacement at the pulling point is measured.

This work details the development of a lap time simulation (LTS) tool for use by Queen’s University Belfast in the Formula Student UK competition. The tool provides an adaptable, user-friendly virtual test environment for the development of the team’s first electric vehicle. A vehicle model was created within Simulink, and a series of events simulated to generate the performance envelope of the car in the form of maximum combined lateral/longitudinal accelerations against velocity (ggv diagram). A four-wheeled vehicle including load transfer was modelled, capturing shifts in traction between each tire, which can influence performance in vehicles where the total tractive power is split between individual wheel motors. The acceleration limits in the ggv diagram were used to simulate the acceleration and endurance events at Formula Student. These events were simulated using a MATLAB code considering a point mass, quasi-steady state model with a perfect driver.

This specification covers a titanium alloy in the form of bars up through 4.000 inches (101.60 mm) in nominal diameter or least distance between parallel sides, inclusive, forgings of thickness up through 4.000 inches (101.60 mm), inclusive, with bars and forgings having a maximum cross-sectional area of 32 in2 (204.46 cm2), and stock for forging of any size (see 8.7).

Certain ankylosing spondyloarthropathies such as ankylosing spondylitis (AS) or diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH) can substantially alter clinicopathologic spine biomechanics as well as injury mechanisms in rear-end motor vehicle collisions. AS is an inflammatory disease which can lead to structural impairments of the spine secondary to flowing ossification along the spinal column, including ossification across the spinal discs, facet joints, and ligaments, and it has also been associated with diffuse osteoporosis of the spine. DISH is characterized by excess bone formation along the spinal column, encompassing the annulus and forming the thickest and strongest bridging osteophytes over adjacent vertebral bodies at the level of the disc space. In both conditions the spine is mechanically stiffened and generally more kyphotic than a healthy spine.

Seats have become stronger over the past two decades and remain more upright in rear impacts. While head restraints are higher and more forward providing support for the head and neck, serious-to-fatal injuries to the thoracic and cervical spine have been seen in occupants with spinal disorders, such as DISH (diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis), ankylosis, spondylosis and/or osteophytes that ossify the joints in the spine. This case study addresses the influence of spinal disorders on fracture-dislocation and spinal cord injury in rear impacts with relatively upright seats. Nineteen field accidents were investigated where serious-to-fatal injuries of the thoracic and cervical spine occurred with the seat remaining upright or slightly reclined. The occupants were lap-shoulder belted, some with belt pretensioning and cinching latch plate.

There is a pressing need to develop accurate and robust approaches for predicting vehicle speed to enhance fuel economy/energy efficiency, drivability and safety of automotive vehicles. This paper details outcomes of research into various methods for the prediction of vehicle velocity. The focus is on short-term predictions over 1 to 10 second prediction horizon. Such short-term predictions can be integrated into a hybrid electric vehicle energy management strategy and have the potential to improve HEV energy efficiency. Several deterministic and stochastic models are considered in this paper for prediction of future vehicle velocity. Deterministic models include an Auto-Regressive Moving Average (ARMA) model, a Nonlinear Auto-Regressive with eXternal input (NARX) shallow neural network and a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) deep neural network. Stochastic models include a Markov Chain (MC) model and a Conditional Linear Gaussian (CLG) model.

The accident reconstruction community has previously relied upon photographs and site visits to recreate a scene. This method is difficult in instances where the site has changed or is not accessible. In 2017 the United States Geological Survey (USGS) released historical 3D point clouds (LiDAR) allowing for access to digital 3D data without visiting the site. This offers many unique benefits to the reconstruction community including: safety, budget, time, and historical preservation. This paper presents a methodology for collecting this data and using it in conjunction with aerial imagery, and camera matching photogrammetry to create 3D computer models of the scene without a site visit.

This specification covers a titanium alloy in the form of forgings 4.0 inches (101.6 mm) and under in nominal cross-sectional thickness and of forging stock.

As the engineering community continues working on automated driving (AD) functionalities, the topic of safety validation still provides fuel for discussions. Despite the vehicles equipped with higher level AD functionalities ready to enter service on public roads, there is still no state-of-the-art process created for safety validation procedures. In this situation, vehicles with similar functionalities may end up coming through fundamentally different validation procedure, and the public may be exposed to additional risks. This paper fist formulates requirements which safety validation process needs to fulfill. The requirements are based on ISO 26262, PAS 21448 (SOTIF), and the state of the art requirements typical for safety applications. Then, the process of implementation of those requirements is sketched.

When reconstructing collisions involving left turning vehicles at intersections, accident reconstructionists are often required to determine the relative timing and spacing between two vehicles involved in such a collision. This time-space analysis frequently involves determining or prescribing a path and acceleration profile for the left turning vehicle. Although numerous studies have examined the straight-line acceleration of vehicles, only two studies have presented the tangential and lateral acceleration of left turning vehicles. This paper expands on the results of those limited studies and presents a methodology to automatically detect and track vehicles in a video file. The authors made observations of left turning vehicles at three intersections. Each intersection incorporated permissive green turn phases for left turning vehicles.

Three-way catalysts (TWCs) for gasoline-powered vehicles commonly contain Pt group metals (Pt, Pd, and Rh) as active components and Al2O3 or OSC as supports, with Pd and Rh being most frequently employed in view of their high thermal durability. Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) have been recently developed to meet strict fuel efficiency regulations, by using feature engines that are much more energy-efficient than those of conventional gasoline vehicles and lend themselves to fixed-point operation control. Therefore, the engine exhaust-induced stress experienced by TWCs in HEVs and the corresponding aging conditions are expected to differ from those in conventional vehicles, which, in turn, should be reflected by a change in the optimal catalyst design. Herein, to facilitate the design of optimum next-generation TWCs, we investigate the deterioration of these catalysts (Pt, Pd, Rh supported on Al2O3 or OSC) under various conditions reflecting different engine operation modes.

In recent years, fuel efficiency has been improved by using many technologies such as downsizing engine, turbocharger and direct injection to reduce CO2 emissions from vehicle. However, the temperature of the exhaust gas from the engines using these technologies becomes lower than that form conventional one. That increases the difficulty for three-way catalyst (TWC) to purify CO, HC and NOx enough because TWC is not warmed up just after engine starting. In order to reduce cold emission mentioned above, we have been studying the warmup strategy of which the key property is thermal mass of TWC. To achieve early warmup, thermal mass of TWC is reduced by lightening the weight of (1) substrate and (2) catalytic materials, namely washcoat amount. Along with the strategy, we have developed TWC with lightweight substrate and applied it from the 2016 model year CIVIC.

Low- to moderate-speed motor vehicle collisions are a common crash type and are sometimes associated with injury complaints. Understanding occupant motion (kinematics) in response to low- and moderate-speed motor vehicle collisions is important for evaluating occupant interactions with interior vehicle structures, including the restraint systems, with the ultimate goal of assessing injury potential. Furthermore, quantitative occupant kinematic data from full-scale crash testing of late-model passenger vehicles is limited for collisions at low- to moderate-speeds. The current study reports kinematic data from full-scale frontal and rear-end crash tests of late-model, mid-size sedans with delta-Vs ranging from 6.0 to 19.0 kph (3.7 to 11.8 mph) and 5.6 to 19.5 kph (3.5 to 12.1 mph), respectively. For each test vehicle, the motion of a Hybrid III 50th-percentile male anthropomorphic test device (ATD) restrained in the driver seat was recorded using high-speed onboard video.

Low- to moderate-speed motor vehicle collisions are common roadway occurrences that are generally associated with low rates of reported injury. While such complaints are generally infrequent, claims of injuries resulting from low- to moderate-speed motor vehicle collisions persist. A limited body of literature using quantitative techniques and full-scale crash tests is available to assess the injury potential associated with such collisions. Prior studies have analyzed occupant kinematics and kinetics as well as human injury risk in low- to moderate-speed collisions with older vehicle vintages but do not assess the effects of updated vehicle interior designs and occupant protection devices reflective of efforts to optimize occupant kinematics and reduce occupant loading and injury risk in more modern vehicles.

This aim of this study was to introduce and test three different design enhancements to the contrast-sensitivity charts developed by Ayers and Kubose [1]. Contrast-sensitivity charts are the current, critical instrument for generating photographic representations of low-illumination scenes. However, their range of applicability is limited to a specific range of lighting conditions for any given scene, and a limited set of testing and perceptual conditions for observers. A total of four contrast charts were presented to ten dark-adapted observers in nine different lighting conditions that changed in ascending order from low to high levels of illumination. For each lighting condition, the order and orientation of the charts was randomized. Observations related to the number of detected contrast levels were then compared to find the utilization ranges for each chart.

Flashing emergency lights on police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances need to be bright enough to alert otherwise unaware drivers about their presence on and near the roadway. Anecdotal evidence suggests that public safety agencies select emergency lighting systems with red or blue flashing lights based on their apparent brightness, with brighter lights judged as "better." With the advent of light emitting diodes (LEDs), emergency flashing lights are brighter and produce more highly saturated colors, thereby causing greater discomfort and disability glare. As a result, first response workers are at higher risk for being injured or killed in vehicle crashes because approaching drivers cannot see them. In the present study, participants viewed red and blue flashing lights on a scale model police vehicle, conforming to present recommended practices for emergency lights. Lights varied in intensity and optical power (intensity × duration).

The time/distance relationship for a motor coach accelerating from a stop is often needed to accurately assess the events leading up to a collision. Several series of tests were conducted to document the low speed acceleration performance of a 45 foot long 2000 Van Hool motor coach equipped with a Cummins ISM engine and an Allison B500 6-speed automatic transmission. These tests included three load configurations and two different acceleration rates, normal and rapid. Data were gathered with a Racelogic VBOX IIIi.

During development of complex automotive technologies, a significant engineering effort is often dedicated to ensuring the safe performance of these systems. An important aspect to consider when assessing the viability of different safety designs or strategies is the time period from the occurrence of a fault to the violation of a Safety Goal (SG). This time period is commonly referred to as the Fault Tolerant Time Interval (FTTI). In Automotive Safety, ISO 26262 [1] calls for the identification and appropriate partitioning of the FTTI, however very little guidance is provided on how to do this. This paper presents a process, covering the entire safety development lifecycle, for the identification of timing constraints and the development of associated requirements necessary to prevent Safety Goal violations.