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High-pressure direct injection (HPDI) of natural gas into the combustion chamber enables a non-premixed combustion regime known from diesel engines. Since knocking combustion cannot occur with this combustion process, an increase in the compression ratio and thus efficiency is possible. Due to the high injection pressures required, this concept is ideally suited to applications where liquefied natural gas (LNG) is available. In marine applications, the bunkering of and operation with LNG is state-of-the-art. Existing HPDI gas combustion concepts typically use a small amount of diesel fuel for ignition, which is injected late in the compression stroke. The diesel fuel ignites due to the high temperature of the cylinder charge. The subsequently injected gas ignites at the diesel flame. The HPDI gas combustion concept presented in this paper is of a monovalent type, meaning that no fuel other than natural gas is used.

In electrified vehicles, auxiliary units can be a dominant source of noise, one of which is the refrigerant scroll compressor. Compared to vehicles with combustion engines, e-vehicles require larger refrigerant compressors, as in addition to the interior, also the battery and the electric motors have to be cooled. Currently, scroll compressors are widely used in the automotive industry, which generate one pressure pulse per revolution due to their discontinuous compression principle. This results in speed-dependent pressure fluctuations as well as higher-harmonic pulsations that arise from reflections. These fluctuations spread through the refrigeration cycle and cause the vibration excitation of refrigerant lines and heat exchangers. The sound transmission path in the air conditioning heat exchanger integrated in the dashboard is particularly critical. Various silencer configurations can be used to dampen these pulsations.

Society is moving towards climate neutrality where hydrogen fuelled combustion engines (H2 ICE) could be considered a main technology. These engines run on hydrogen (H2) so carbon-based emission are only present at a very low level from the lube oil. The most important pollutants NO and NO2 are caused by the exhaust aftertreatment system as well as CO2 coming from the ambient air. For standard measurement technologies these low levels of CO2 are hard to detect due to the high-water content. Normal levels of CO2 are between 400-500 ppm which is very close or even below the detection limit of commonly used non-dispersive-infrared-detectors (NDIR). As well the high-water content is very challenging for NOx measuring devices, like chemiluminescence detectors (CLD), where it results in higher noise and therefore a worse detection limit. Even for Fourier-transformed-infrared-spectroscopy-analysers (FT-IR) it is challenging to deal with water content over 15% without increased noise.

As a result of the ever-increasing application of cyber-physical components in the automotive industry, cybersecurity has become an urgent topic. Adapting technologies and communication protocols like Ethernet and WiFi in connected vehicles yields many attack scenarios. Consequently, ISO/SAE 21434 and UN R155 (2021) define a standard and regulatory framework for automotive cybersecurity, Both documents follow a risk management-based approach and require a threat modeling methodology for risk analysis and identification. Such a threat modeling methodology must conform to the Threat Analysis and Risk Assessment (TARA) framework of ISO/SAE 21434. Conversely, existing threat modeling methods enumerate isolated threats disregarding the vehicle’s design and connections. Consequently, they neglect the role of attack paths from a vehicle’s interfaces to its assets.

As alternative to electrification or carbon free fuels such as hydrogen, CO2-neutral fuels have been researched aiming to decrease the impact of fossil energy sources on the environment. Despite the potential benefit of capturing CO2 emission after combustion for own fuel production, the so-called eFuels also benefit by using a green source of energy during their fabrication. Among all the possibilities for eFuels, alcohols, ethers (such as MTBE and ETBE) and alternative hydrocarbons have shown positive impacts regarding emission reduction and performance when compared to standard gasoline. Previously in [1] and [2], synthetic fuels and methanol blends were tested at steady state conditions in order to verify advantages and drawbacks relative to gasoline, for power-sport motorcycles.

Trim materials are often used for vibroacoustic energy absorption purposes within vehicles. To estimate the sound impact at a driver’s ear, the sub-structuring approach can be applied. Thus, transfer functions are calculated starting from the acoustic source to the car body, from the car body to the trim and, finally, from the trim to the inner cavity where the driver is located. One of the most challenging parts is the calculation of the transfer functions from the car body inner surface to the bottom trim surface. Commonly, freely laying mass-spring systems (trims) are simulated with a fixed or in some cases with a sliding boundary condition at the trim-structure interface. As a result, interface phenomena such as friction, stick-slip or discontinuities are not considered. Such approaches allow for faster simulations but result in simulations strongly overestimating the energy transfer, particularly in the frequency range where the mass-spring system’s resonances take place.

The production of Electric Vehicles (EVs) has a significant environmental impact, with up to 50 % of their lifetime greenhouse gas potential attributed to manufacturing processes. The use of sustainable materials in EV design is therefore crucial for reducing their overall carbon footprint. Wood laminates have emerged as a promising alternative due to their renewable nature. Additionally, wood-based materials offer unique damping properties that can contribute to improved Noise, Vibration, and Harshness (NVH) characteristics. Compared to conventional materials such as aluminium, wooden structures exhibit significantly higher damping properties. In this study, the potential of lightweight wood composites, specifically steel-wood hybrid structures, is investigated as a potential composite material for battery housings for electric vehicles. Experiments have been performed in order to determine the modal parameters, such as natural frequencies and damping ratios.

Expansion chamber mufflers are commonly applied to reduce noise in heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) or exhaust systems. In dissipative mufflers, sound-absorptive materials, such as microperforated plates (MPP), are applied to achieve an enhanced and more broadband mitigation effect. Computational acoustics (CA) analyses of mufflers are usually carried out in the frequency domain, assuming time-harmonic excitation. However, certain applications require time-domain simulations. From a computational point of view, such transient analyses are more challenging. A transformation of the governing equations involving frequency-dependent material parameters into the time domain induces convolution integrals. We apply the recently proposed finite element (FE) formulation of a time-domain equivalent fluid (TDEF) model to simulate the transient response of dissipative acoustic media to arbitrary unsteady excitation.

To achieve global climate goals, greenhouse gas emissions must be drastically reduced. The energy and transportation sectors are responsible for about one third of the greenhouse gases emitted worldwide, and they often use internal combustion engines (ICE). One effective way to decarbonize ICEs may be to replace carbon-containing fossil fuels such as natural gas entirely, or at least partially, with hydrogen. Cost-effective development of sustainable combustion concepts for hydrogen and natural gas/hydrogen mixtures in ICEs requires the intensive use of fast and robust simulation tools for prediction. The key challenge is appropriate modeling of flame front propagation. This paper evaluates and applies different approaches to modeling laminar flame speeds from the literature. Both appropriate models and reaction kinetic calculations are considered.

This paper introduces a finite element (FE) approach to determine tire deformation and its effect on open-wheeled racecar aerodynamics. In recent literature tire deformation was measured optically. Combined loads like accelerating at corner exit are difficult to reproduce in wind tunnels and requires several optical devices to measure the tire deformation. In contrast, an FE approach is capable of determining the tire deformation in combined load states accurately. The FE tire model was validated using computer tomography images, 3D scan measurements, contact patch measurements and stiffness measurements. The deformed shape of the FE model was used in a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. A sensitivity study was created to determine the effect of the tire deformation on aerodynamics for unloaded and loaded tires. In addition, the influence of these tire deformations was investigated in a CFD study using a full vehicle model.