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Component bench fatigue testing is a cost-effective way to evaluate the durability of exhaust catalytic converters. A successful bench fatigue test depends on the development of a test specification. The test specification should represent the actual customer duty cycle that the component is exposed to. Based on the concept of equivalent fatigue damage, a systematic approach is presented to obtain the test specification from the acquired road load data. A method based on damage analysis is proposed to determine the effective notch factor, and an empirical relationship is presented to account for the thermal effect on the test specification. The principles and procedures of multiple block testing and constant amplitude testing are also presented.

New supplier / manufacturer relationship are necessary to produce products quickly, cost-effectively, and with features expected by the customer. However, the need for a new relationship is not universally accepted and endorsed. Resistance can be minimized through supplier self-assessment (such as Ford Motor Company's web-based instruments), management initiatives, and incentives. Trust and sharing are hallmarks. This strategy requires a new workplace paradigm affecting culture and people issues. Teams, extend across companies, share ideas and innovations. Decisions need to be mutually beneficial and the long-term value, for supplier and manufacturer, needs to be considered.

Vibration and sound radiation characteristics of bead-stiffened panels are investigated. Rectangular panels with different bead configurations are considered. The attention is focused on various design parameters, such as orientation, depth, and periodicity, and their effects on equivalent bending stiffness, modal density, radiation efficiency and sound transmission. A combined FEA-SEA approach is used to determine the response characteristics of panels across a broad frequency range. The details of the beads are represented in fine-meshed FEA models. Based on predicted surface velocities, Rayleigh integral is evaluated numerically to calculate the sound pressure, sound power and then the radiation efficiency of beaded panels. Analytical results are confirmed by comparing them with experimental measurements. In the experiments, the modal densities of the panels are inferred from averaged mechanical conductance.

The 45RFE is a new generation electronically controlled rear wheel drive transmission. It employs real-time feedback, closed-loop modulation of shift functions to achieve excellence in shift quality and to meet severe durability goals. The 45RFE uses no shift valves; all friction element applications are effected with high-flow electro-hydraulic solenoid valves. A unique gear train arrangement of three planetary carriers allows all sun and annulus gears to have identical numbers of teeth and to use common pinion gears in all carriers. This results in substantial manufacturing simplification. The three-planetary system is designed for four forward ratios of 3.00, 1.67, 1.00 and 0.75 and one reverse gear ratio equal to the low gear ratio. A fifth ratio of 1.50 is used mainly in certain kick-down shift sequences for highway passing. A sixth forward ratio, an additional overdrive ratio of 0.67, is available in the hardware.

This project investigated the effect of carburizing carbon-potential and thermal history on the bending fatigue performance of carburized SAE 4320 gear steel. Modified-Brugger cantilever bending fatigue specimens were carburized at carbon potentials of 0.60, 0.85, 1.05, and 1.25 wt. pct. carbon, and were either quenched and tempered or quenched, tempered, reheated, quenched, and tempered. The reheat treatment was designed to lower the solute carbon content in the case through the formation of transition carbides and refine the prior austenite grain size. Specimens were fatigue tested in a tension/tension cycle with a minimum to maximum stress ratio of 0.1. The bending fatigue results were correlated with case and core microstructures, hardness profiles, residual stress profiles, retained austenite profiles, and component distortion.

The 45RFE is a new generation electronically controlled rear wheel drive automatic transmission. It employs real-time feedback, closed-loop modulation of shift functions to achieve outstanding shift quality and to meet demanding durability goals. It uses no shift valves; all friction element applications are effected with high-flow electro-hydraulic solenoid valves. A unique gear train arrangement of three planetary carriers allows all sun gears and annulus gears to have the same number of teeth respectively and use a common pinion gear in all carriers, resulting in significant manufacturing simplification. The three-planetary system is designed for four forward ratios of 3.00, 1.67, 1.00 and 0.75 and one reverse gear ratio equal to the low gear ratio. A fifth ratio of 1.50 is used only in certain kick-down shift sequences for highway passing. A sixth forward ratio, an additional overdrive ratio of 0.67, is available in the hardware.

An advancement in traction control has entered the marketplace this year with the debut of the 1999 Jeep® Grand Cherokee equipped with the Quadra-TracII or Quadra-Drive four wheel drive systems. The new technology that is at the heart of these systems is the progressive coupling. A new passive adaptive traction control device that utilizes much of the hardware normally associated with automatic transmissions but applied to enhance traction. In the following report the function of progressive coupling will be described along with design characteristics and parameter recommendations.

Traditionally, vehicle emission testing has used non-intelligent analyzers to meet government-regulated standards. Typically, these instruments would provide a 0 to 5-volt signal to a central test cell computer which would then handle all calibrations including analyzer linearization, zero and span corrections, stability checks, time delays, and sample readings. Modern gas analyzers now contain intelligence within each individual analyzer; this has caused the calibration methods to change dramatically. New methods were developed in the bench control system to take advantage of the intelligence of the analyzers by creating a distributed control architecture. The zeroing, spanning, and linearization methods are quite different from the previous protocols. The results, however, will provide more accurate reading to be used in calculating vehicle emissions.