Search Results

The design and construction of a Wankel-powered, rear-engine, rear-drive urban vehicle was undertaken by students in the engineering and industrial design curriculums at The University of Michigan. ...The goal of this group was to submit a competitive entry to the Urban Vehicle Design Competition conducted in August 1972, and hopefully to provide some fresh solutions to the problems of urban transportation. ...The goal of this group was to submit a competitive entry to the Urban Vehicle Design Competition conducted in August 1972, and hopefully to provide some fresh solutions to the problems of urban transportation. Constraints set by the UVDC Committee as well as proposed federal emission and safety standards were considered as governing parameters in the design process.

Neither the architect, in his preoccupation with individual projects and mere pieces of cityscape, nor the engineer, in his willingness to slice into the living tissue of the city without understanding its socio-environmental pathology, is trained to cope with our problems of urban design. Yet is is the vast technical networks of movement that are the lifeblood of our cities, and have the most promise of providing an infrastructure capable of ordering growth and change in our cities. ...However, urban sociologists are preoccupied with problems of social diagnosis, architects reject technology as a conceptual skeleton for their esthetic games, and engineers seem unable to grasp the vast esthetic implications of transportation technology in the cityscape of tomorrow.

If cycle emissions rates and fuel consumption are intended to typify those of Australian urban driving a new drive cycle is needed since the legislated cycles do not closely replicate observed driving patterns or vehicle emissions and fuel consumption.

An experimental urban car was designed and built by Western Washington State College as an entry in the international Urban Vehicle Design Competition. ...An experimental urban car was designed and built by Western Washington State College as an entry in the international Urban Vehicle Design Competition. The car was designed with a novel form of mid-engine rear drive chassis.

The Brazilian Exhaust Gas Emission legislation established the requirement for EURO III emissions level for city busses introduction one year ahead of the remaining diesel vehicles in an attempt to improve the air quality of the populous main Brazilian cities. To comply with the new requirements Volkswagen Truck & 7-210 (front engine) and the 17-260 (rear engine) utilizing the MWM new generation 6.12 engine family equipped with the Bosch common rail electronic injection system in combination with a sort of driveline features, resulting in an extremely flexible and fuel efficient vehicle to cover a large variety of Brazilian cities routes, traffic density and loading culture, offering the best compromise of performance and fuel efficiency within all conditions.

Over the last decades, a tremendous effort has been made by the European Commission to control the amount of pollution in urban areas by means of EC directives to limit emissions. Today one of the main problems in urban areas is the particulate matter, predominantly emitted by diesel engines. ...In this scenario, the research group of the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” has undertaken a research project with the aim of identifying the benefits of new drive system technologies for urban buses. In this work, the potential benefits of replacing Diesel engines with two different hybrid powertrains are shown. ...To obtain a projection of the beneficial effects of the hybridization on the urban area of Rome, numerical simulations have been carried out on some “real” driving cycles corresponding to real bus routes.

A Diesel particulate trap oxidiser system suitable for retrofiting on urban buses is described. The system consists of a ceramic trap, a regeneration device and a control unit. ...The buses have been tested under real conditions on Athens urban bus routes and the results after the first 10000 km of operation are presented.

A team of industrial design students designed and built a prototype urban taxi that overcomes several disadvantages of contemporary production taxis including: inadequate interior driver and passenger space, bulky exterior dimensions, and inconvenience to physically handicapped passengers. ...Aesthetically, the vehicle was designed to harmonize visually with the urban environment.

In developing countries with large populations and the demand for environmental protection, there is a need for the urban traffic development. These countries could implement Mass Transit, develop less polluting power sources, restrict the production of passenger cars and motorcycles and promote legislation for emission systems.

Automotive exhaust emissions were studied from the standpoint of urban traffic conditions. Auto traffic data were obtained in Tokyo, Japan, using a test car monitored for vehicle speed and other pertinent data. ...Eleven different kinds of traffic patterns in Tokyo were identified which seemed to most closely represent urban driving conditions. Forty-eight motor vehicles, consisting of 1971 to 1976 model year passenger cars, vans and trucks (gasoline and diesel), were driven on a chassis dynamometer to measure emissions under the eleven patterns mentioned above. ...It was found that the 10 mode Japanese official test method would underestimate total emissions in an urban area, especially for vehicles certified to meet stringent emission standards.

The impact of any transit system on the urban environment is related to two areas-one, the metropolitan area; the other, along the routes near the transit stations. ...Finally, to have a really improved urban environment, we must consider our social institutions. We must pull together our many programs into one effective program for rebuilding and managing our cities.

Intelligence modules take inputs from the user to understand the need to navigate from its current location to another destination and, then, generate a path between them on urban, drivable surfaces using its internal urban database. Situational awareness helps intelligence to update the path in real time by avoiding any static/moving obstacles while following traffic rules. ...Southwest Research Institute developed an Autonomous Ground Vehicle (AGV) capable of navigating in urban environments. The paper first gives an overview of hardware and software onboard the vehicle.

Particularly with buses used in urban areas, reduction methods in black smoke emissions are being researched in addition to the efforts to satisfy the aforementioned PM regulations. ...The system described in this paper was developed for use mainly with buses in large urban concentrations. The system described in this paper mainly consists of both wall-flow monolith filters for filtration of PM emissions and electric heaters for regeneration. ...Since bus routes in large urban concentrations follow common patterns, the mass of PM accumulated over a given time period is more or less constant.

A new urban transit bus design has been developed that demonstrates the latest technological advancements in the automotive engineering world.

Data from injury-producing urban traffic accidents in Australia, involving tempered glass windshields, reveal that while the windshield is a major cause of injuries, they were generally slight and rarely disfiguring.

In August 1972, the Urban Vehicle Design Competition (UVDC) completed an 18-month program of vehicle design and construction with a national testing event of all vehicles entered in the contest. ...The objectives of the competition were to promote a project-oriented approach to engineering education, as well as to provide students with the opportunity to contribute constructively in the effort to develop low-emission, safe urban vehicles. Some of the more innovative designs appeared in the following areas: 1. Low-pollution powerplants utilizing nonfossil fuels, thermal reactors, catalytic reactors, exhaust gas recirculation systems, and hybrid powerplants. 2.

The objective of this project was to investigate the mass saving potential of ultra-high strength stainless steel as applied to the structure of a full size urban transit bus. The resulting design for a low floor, hybrid bus has an empty weight less than half that of a conventional transit bus.

Simulation, optimization and regression pre-selector gearshift models in the urban bus transmission are designed. Parameters of pre-selector gearshift algorithm, allowing to reduce loading of transmission elements and increase smoothness of switching-over process are synthesized. ...The article deals with parameters optimization of pre-selected gearshift algorithm in the urban bus transmission. With provision for specifics of under investigation process the research technique and toolkit of complex oscillatory system syntheses are offered in the report, including choice of strategy and method of deciding the multicriterion problem, development simulation models of pre-selector gearshift process, motivation and choice of efficiency criterions, searching area, initial approach and operated parameters.

A measure of the correlation of emissions from vehicles driven over the EPA Urban Dynamometer Driving Schedule (UDDS) and over the full LA 4 driving schedule is provided. The UDDS is a speed-trace consisting of 18 profiles. separated by idle periods of 0-39 s duration The schedule covers 7.46 miles in 1372 s for an average speed of 19.6 mph.

Design activity on the University of Detroit's (U of D) entry in the 1972 Urban Vehicle Design Competition began in September 1971 with 60 senior engineering students in an interdisciplinary design course. ...The U of D urban vehicle design concept was awarded sixth place overall, and the top awards in safety and emissions for liquid fueled internal combustion engines.