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On the path to decarbonizing road transport, electric commercial vehicles will play a significant role. The first applications were directed to the smaller trucks for distribution traffic with relatively moderate driving and range requirements, but meanwhile, the first generation of a complete portfolio of truck sizes is developed and available on the market. In these early applications, many compromises were accepted to overcome component availability, but meanwhile, the supply chain can address the specific needs of electric trucks. With that, the optimization towards higher usability and lower costs can be moved to the next level. Especially for long-haul trucks, efficiency is a driving factor for the total costs of ownership. Besides the propulsion system, all other systems must be optimized for higher efficiency. This includes thermal management since the thermal management components consume energy and have a direct impact on the driving range.

In order to improve the efficiency of passenger cars, developments focus on decreasing their aerodynamic drag, part of which is caused by cooling air. Thus, car manufacturers try to seal the cooling air path to prevent leakage flows. Nevertheless, gaps between the single components of the cooling air path widen due to the deformation of components under aerodynamic load. For simulating the cooling airflow utilization ratio (CAUR), computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are used, which neglect component deformation. In this paper, a computational method aiming at sufficient gap resolution and determining the CAUR of passenger cars under the consideration of component deformation is developed. Therefore, a partitioned approach of fluid structure interaction (FSI) simulations is used. The fluid field is simulated in OpenFOAM, whereas the structural simulations are conducted using Pam-Crash.

In view of BS-VI emission norms implementation in Commercial Vehicle (CV) application, the emissions are not only confirmed in standard condition but also in non-standard condition including different combinations of ambient temperature and pressure especially for checking the emission in WNTE cycle. However, achieving the emissions in different environmental conditions require physical emission calibration to be performed in those conditions. Hence, engine must be calibrated in climatic test chambers to ensure emission in different climatic conditions leading to multifold increase in the calibration effort. With addition of BS-VI emission regulation, After Treatment System (ATS) is a mandatory requirement to reduce the tail pipe emissions. Efficient functioning of ATS requires enough heating to convert the engine out emissions. Vehicle level Real Drive Emission (RDE) measurement without Conformity Factor (CF) limitation are added as an important legislative requirement.

The major objective of this paper is to develop thermal management strategy targeting optimum performance of Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) catalyst in a Medium Duty Diesel Engine performing in BS6 emission cycles. In the current scenario, the Emissions Norms are becoming more stringent and with the introduction of Real Drive Emission Test (RDE) and WHTC test comprising of both cold and hot phase, there is a need to develop techniques and strategies which are quick to respond in real time to cope with emission limit especially NOx. SCR seems to be suitable solution in reducing NOx in real time. However, there are limitations to SCR operating conditions, the major being the dosing release conditions which defines the gas temperature at which DEF (Diesel Exhaust Fluid) can be injected as DEF injection at lower gas temperatures than dosing release will lead to Urea deposit formation and will significantly hamper the SCR performance.

Meeting strict current and future emissions legislation necessitates development of computational tools capable of predicting the behaviour of combustion and emissions with an accuracy sufficient to make correct design decisions while keeping computational cost of the simulations amenable for large-scale design space exploration. While detailed kinetics modelling is increasingly seen as a necessity for accurate simulations, the computational cost can be often prohibitive, prompting interest in simplified approaches allowing fast simulation of reduced mechanisms at coarse grid resolutions appropriate for internal combustion engine simulations in design context. In this study we present a simplified Well-stirred Reactor (WSR) implementation coupled with 3D CFD Ricardo VECTIS solver.

In this paper, the multi-physical simulation workflow from electromagnetics to structural dynamics for a squirrel-cage induction machine is explored. In electromagnetic simulations, local forces and rotor torque are calculated for specific speed-torque operation points. In order to consider non-linearities and interaction with control system as well as transmission, time-domain simulations are carried out. For induction machines, the computational effort with full transient numerical methods like finite element analysis (FEA) is very high. A novel reduced order electro-mechanical model is presented. It still accounts for vibro-acoustically relevant harmonics due to pulse-width modulation (PWM), slotting, distributed winding and saturation effects, but is substantially faster (minutes to hours instead of days to weeks per operation point).

HTOE (High Temperature Operation Endurance) and PTCE (Power Thermal Cycle Endurance) tests are typically performed according automotive group standards, such as LV 124 [1], VW80000 [2], FCA CS.00056 [3] or PSA B21 7130 [4]. The LV 124-2 group standard, composed by representatives of automobile manufacturers like Audi AG, BMW AG, Volkswagen AG and Porsche AG describes a wide range of environmental tests and their requirements. In addition, calculation parameters and a method are given in the standard. These group standard tests are often attributed to IEC 60068-2-2 [5] for HTOE and IEC 60068-2-14 [6] for PTCE. As both of these tests are typically of long duration, fundamentally linked to reliability (therefore requiring a statistically significant number of samples) and of considerable importance to power electronic, they are worthy of additional scrutiny for automotive developers as most automotive development moves towards electrification.

Wet Clutches are used in automotive powertrains to enable compact designs and efficient gear shifting. During the slip phase of engagement, significant flash temperatures arise at the friction disc to separator interface because of dissipative frictional losses. An important aspect of the design process is to ensure the interface temperature does not exceed the material temperature threshold at which accelerated wear behavior and/or thermal degradation occurs. During the early stages of a design process, it is advantageous to evaluate numerous system and component design iterations exposed to plethora of possible drive cycles. A simulation tool is needed which can determine the critical operational conditions the system must survive for performance and durability to be assured. This paper describes a time-efficient multiphysics model developed to predict clutch disc temperatures with a runtime in the order of minutes.

To avoid frequent regeneration intervals leading to expeditious ageing of the catalyst and substantial fuel penalty for the owner, it is always desired to estimate the soot coming from diesel exhaust emission, the soot accumulated and burnt in the Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF). Certain applications and vehicle duty cycles cannot make use of the differential pressure sensor for estimating the soot loading in the DPF because of the limitations of the sensor tolerance and measurement accuracy. The physical soot model is always active and hence a precise and more accurate model is preferred to calibrate & optimize the regeneration interval. This paper presents the approach to estimate the engine-out soot and the accumulated soot in the DPF using a graphical calculation tool (AVL Concerto CalcGraf™).

Current developments in automotive industry such as hybrid powertrains and the continuously increasing demands on emission control systems, are pushing complexity still further. Validation of such systems lead to a huge amount of test cases and hence extreme testing efforts on the road. At the same time the pressure to reduce costs and minimize development time is creating challenging boundaries on development teams. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to utilize testing and validation prototypes in the most efficient way. It is necessary to apply high levels of instrumentation and collect as much data as possible. And a streamlined data pipeline allows the fleet managers to get new insights from the raw data and control the validation vehicles as well as the development team in the most efficient way. In this paper we will demonstrate a data-driven approach for validation testing.

With the increased number of variants, the preservation of a brand-specific vehicle DNA becomes more and more important. Paired with growing customer expectations, brand DNA can be a crucial point in the decision-making process of buying a new vehicle. Whereas the customer will assess the DNA subjectively during driving by evaluating the vehicle drive quality (“driveability”), most manufacturers are not merely relying on subjective evaluations by having test drivers perform maneuvers with prototype vehicles. Nowadays, the assessment is performed objectively during the vehicle development process. As a supporting measure, the Anstalt für Verbrennungskraftmaschinen List (AVL) has made the objective assessment tool AVL-DRIVE commercially available. Up to now, the AVL-DRIVE ratings had to be manually analyzed and checked for outliers. Low ratings and high deviations to a priori specified target values are a good starting point for the search of outliers.

The latest generation of internal combustion engines may emit significant levels of sub-23 nm particles. The main objective of the Horizon 2020 “DownToTen” project was to develop a robust methodology and provide policy recommendations towards the particle number (PN) emissions measurements in the sub-23 nm region. In order to achieve this target, a new portable exhaust particle sampling system (PEPS) was developed, being capable of measuring exhaust particles down to at least 10 nm under real-world conditions. The main design target was to build a system that is compatible with current PMP requirements and is characterized by minimized losses in the sub-23 nm region, high robustness against artefacts and high flexibility in terms of different PN modes investigation, i.e. non-volatile, volatile and secondary particles.

Fuel injection is a key process influencing the performance of Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) Engines. Injecting fuel at elevated temperature can initiate flash boiling which can lead to faster breakup, reduced penetration, and increased spray-cone angle. Thus, it impacts engine efficiency in terms of combustion quality, CO2, NOx and soot emission levels. This research deals with modelling of flash boiling processes occurring in gasoline fuel injectors. The flashing mass transfer rate is modelled by the advanced Hertz-Knudsen model considering the deviation from the thermodynamic-equilibrium conditions. The effect of nucleation-site density and its variation with degree of superheat is studied. The model is validated against benchmark test cases and a substantiated comparison with experiment is achieved.

The paper derives a practical method for analysing transmission rates for light passing through transparent media like outer lenses of head lamps and tail lamps. It is shown that only two geometric parameters are needed to do the analysis, as are the angle of incidence measured to the surface normal and the surface normal itself. The surface is needed to be described mathematically - whether analytical (CAD) or discretised (FE or CFD), but no thickness is necessary. Two fields of application will be shown. The first one is the estimation of light performance or module position of head lamps in the early design process. A second one addresses the optimal time to doing outdoor weathering tests with respect to maximal impact of solar irradiation.

The development of modern combustion engines (spark ignition as well as compression ignition) for vehicles compliant with future oriented emission legislation (BS6, Euro VI, China 6) has introduced several technologies for improvement of both fuel efficiency as well as low emissions combustion strategies. Some of these technologies as there are high pressure multiple injection systems or sophisticated exhaust gas after treatment system imply substantial increase in test and calibration time as well as equipment cost. With the introduction of 48V systems for hybridization a cost- efficient enhancement and, partially, an even attractive alternative is now available. An overview will be given on current technologies as well as on implemented test procedures. The focus will be on solutions which have potential for the Indian market, i.e. solutions which can be implemented with moderate application effort for currently available compact and medium size cars.

The reduction of both harmful emissions (CO, HC, NOx, etc.) and gases responsible for greenhouse effects (especially CO2) are mandatory aspects to be considered in the development process of any kind of propulsion concept. Focusing on ICEs, the main development topics are today not only the reduction of harmful emissions, increase of thermodynamic efficiency, etc. but also the decarbonization of fuels which offers the highest potential for the reduction of CO2 emissions. Accordingly, the development of future ICEs will be closely linked to the development of CO2 neutral fuels (e.g. biofuels and e-fuels) as they will be part of a common development process. This implies an increase in development complexity, which needs the support of engine simulations. In this work, the virtual modeling of real fuel behavior is addressed to improve current simulation capabilities in studying how a specific composition can affect the engine performance.

In the context of today’s and future legislative requirements for NOx and soot particle emissions as well as today’s market trends for further efficiency gains in gasoline engines, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models need to further improve their intrinsic predictive capability to fulfill OEM needs towards the future. Improving fuel chemistry modelling, knock predictions and the modelling of the interaction between the chemistry and turbulent flow are three key challenges to improve the predictivity of CFD simulations of Spark-Ignited (SI) engines. The Flamelet Generated Manifold (FGM) combustion modelling approach addresses these challenges. By using chemistry pre-tabulation technologies, today’s most detailed fuel chemistry models can be included in the CFD simulation. This allows a much more refined description of auto-ignition delays for knock as well as radical concentrations which feed into emission models, at comparable or even reduced overall CFD run-time.

The current trend in automobiles is towards electrical vehicles, but for the most part these vehicles still require an internal combustion engine to provide additional range and flexibility. These engines are under stringent emissions regulations, in particular, for the reduction of CO2. Gas engines which run lean burn combustion systems provide a viable route to these emission reductions, however designing these engines to provide sustainable and controlled combustion under lean conditions at λ=2.0 is challenging. To address this challenge, it is possible to use a scavenged Pre-Chamber Ignition (PCI) system which can deliver favorable conditions for ignition close to the spark plug. The lean charge in the main combustion chamber is then ignited by flame jets emanating from the pre-chamber nozzles. Accurate prediction of flame kernel development and propagation is essential for the analysis of PCI systems.

Over the past years, the question as to what may be the powertrain of the future has become ever more apparent. Aiming to improve upon a given technology, the internal combustion engine still offers a number of development paths in order to maintain its position in public and private mobility. In this study, an innovative combustion process is investigated with the goal to further approximate the ideal Otto cycle. Thus far, similar approaches such as Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) shared the same objective yet were unable to be operated under high load conditions. Highly increased control efforts and excessive mechanical stress on the components are but a few examples of the drawbacks associated with HCCI. The approach employed in this work is the so-called Spark Assisted Compression Ignition (SACI) in combination with a pre-chamber spark plug, enabling short combustion durations even at high dilution levels.

Electromechanical steering systems (EPS) provide assisting steering force through an electric motor, often paired with a screw drive. The combination of an electric motor and a screw drive lead to high inertia and thus to a reduced feedback of tire force behavior at the steering wheel. This force behavior contains information about driving conditions and road surface. However, the electric motor can be used to actively enhance and manipulate steering feedback. This article describes the driver perception of modified steering feedback. The presented data is collected carrying out a driving simulator study with average drivers as test subjects. In this study the driver experiences a modified steering feedback at a change of road friction coefficient. Based on the test subjects ratings the perception, acceptance and controllability of the presented steering feedback modifications are assessed.