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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.

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. In comparison to conventional materials such as aluminum, ply wood structures exhibit beneficial damping properties. The loss factor of plywood structures with a thickness below 20 mm ranges from 0.013 to 0.032. Comparable aluminum structures however exhibit only a fraction of this loss factor with a range between 0.002 and 0.005.

Expansion chamber mufflers are commonly applied to reduce noise in HVAC. Dissipative materials, such as microperforated plates (MPPs), are often applied to achieve a more broadband mitigation effect. Such mufflers are typically characterized in the frequency domain, assuming time-harmonic excitation. From a computational point of view, transient analyses are more challenging. A transformation of the equivalent fluid model or impedance boundary conditions into the time domain induces convolution integrals. We apply the recently proposed finite element formulation of a time domain equivalent fluid (TDEF) model to simulate the transient response of dissipative acoustic media to arbitrary unsteady excitation. As most time domain approaches, the formulation relies on approximating the frequency-dependent equivalent fluid parameters by a sum of rational functions composed of real-valued or complex-conjugated poles.

Charge dilution in gasoline engines reduces NOx emissions and wall heat losses by the lower combustion temperature. Furthermore, under part load conditions de-throttling allows the reduction of pumping losses and thus higher engine efficiency. In contrast to lean burn, charge dilution by exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) under stoichiometric combustion conditions enables the use of an effective three-way catalyst. A pre-chamber spark plug with hot surface-assisted spark ignition (HSASI) was developed at the UAS Karlsruhe to overcome the drawbacks of charge dilution, especially under part load or cold start conditions, such as inhibited ignition and slow flame speed, and to even enable a further increase of the dilution rate. The influence of the HSASI pre-chamber spark plug on the heat release under EGR dilution and stoichiometric conditions was investigated on a single-cylinder gasoline engine.

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.

The objective of this experimental investigation was to analyze the effect of various exhaust gas aftertreatment technologies on particulate number emissions (PN) of an MPFI EU5 motorcycle. Specifically, three different aftertreatment strategies were compared, including a three-way-catalyst (TWC) with LS structure as the baseline, a hybrid catalyst with a wire mesh filter, and an optimized gasoline particulate filter (GPF) with three-way catalytic coating. Experimental investigations using the standard test cycle WMTC performed on a two-wheeler chassis dynamometer, while the inhouse particulate sampling system was utilized to gather information about size-dependent filtering efficiency, storage, and combustion of nanoparticles. The particulate sampling and measuring system consist of three condensation particle counters (CPCs) calibrated to three different size classes (SPN4, SPN10, SPN23).

The current European fleet of vehicles is ageing and lifetime mileages are rising proportionally. Consequently, a substantial fraction of the vehicle fleet is currently operating at mileages well beyond current durability legislation (≤ 160,000 km). Emissions inventories and models show substantial increases in emissions with increasing mileage, but knowledge of the effect of emissions control system deterioration at very high mileages is sparse. Emissions testing has been conducted on matched pairs (or more) of diesel and gasoline (and CNG) vehicles, of low and high mileage, supplementing the results with in-house data, in order to explore high mileage emission deterioration factors (DF). The study isolated, as far as possible, the effect of emissions deterioration with mileage, by using nominally identical vehicle models and controlling other variables.

In the acoustic design of flow guiding components, novel simulation concepts for predicting relevant sound sources in the early design state become increasingly important. This requires accurate numerical methods to describe the involved phenomena. The present study computationally investigates the flow-induced aeroacoustic sound sources, generated in turbulent pipe flow. The analysis follows a hybrid approach, where the acoustic sound field is predicted separately from the underlying turbulent flow field, supplied with acoustic source terms from an incompressible flow simulation of the considered configuration in the limit of low Mach number. Source terms for use as input into different acoustic wave equations, the Lighthill wave equation, the vortex sound theory, and the Perturbed Convective Wave Equation (PCWE) are computed performing incompressible Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) and Large-Eddy Simulations (LES) of fully developed pipe flow.

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).

This paper presents the results of an investigation on the influence of a duct’s geometry and shape on its acoustic length, which differs from its physical length by a factor referred to as end-correction. In addition to traditional parameters such as length and diameter, the author has investigated the effect of additional geometry features which are less commonly addressed in the technical literature, such as a diameter contraction or a bent section along the duct. The relative microphone position with respect to the pipe orifice and to the ground surface of the measurement environment has been investigated, showing negligible impact on the measurement results. The sound wave propagation within a pipe featuring a diameter contraction has then been analysed, showing the relationship between the pipe contraction shape and location and the pipe acoustic length.

Due to climatic movements and politics, there is no doubt that a stricter emission legislation will soon face the two-wheeler sector and their manufacturers with new challenges. Additional to the already limited pollutants, a limitation of particulate number will probably also be introduced, which means that there is an urgent need for action in exhaust gas after treatment and particulate reduction systems. For natural aspirated, port injected engines, as used in two-wheeler-technologies, conventional systems already established in passenger cars are not necessarily applicable. Moreover, the emission spectrum is fundamentally different from passenger car engines due to the better homogenization of they typically used MPFI engine types. Adapting conventional particulate filter technologies to the finer particles of MPFI engines would result in a disproportionately larger exhaust backpressure.

Charge dilution by lean-burn is one way to increase the efficiency of spark ignition engines while reducing NOx emissions. This work focuses on increasing the flammability of lean mixtures inside a passive pre-chamber spark plug by elevating its temperature with the help of a controllable hot surface integrated into the pre-chamber. Thus, an extension of the lean limit under part load is aimed for. A pre-chamber spark plug prototype with an integrated, controllable glow plug was developed, called Hot Surface Assisted Spark Ignition (HSASI). Experimental investigations were conducted on a single-cylinder engine at the Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences. Operating modes with an active glow plug (HSASI) and a non-active glow plug were compared. The lean limit for both operation modes were determined under part load. NOx, CO and THC emissions were measured for different air-fuel equivalence ratios λ. The lean limit is extended by more than 0.1 in λ at low loads with HSASI operation.

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.

Drivetrain electrification is increasing in the kart racing sector since noise emissions are an important factor in urban areas. To improve range, it has become necessary to optimize the rolling resistance of kart racing tires. This paper introduces a parameter study for small bias-ply tires which are used in kart racing and investigates the effect of these parameters on rolling resistance. In recent literature, rolling resistance is mostly examined in radial passenger car tires. Most testing devices are limited to rim sizes from ten inches upwards. In this study, a test rig was developed with focus on low cost and small rim sizes. This self-developed test rig was validated through a comparison with an approved test rig according to ISO 18164 standard. A parameter study was conducted to investigate the effect of changes in the construction of the tire. These changes affect the warp count of the carcass fabric and the crown angle of the different plies.

In-cylinder flows in internal combustion engines are highly turbulent in nature. An important property of turbulence that plays a key role in mixture formation is anisotropy; it also influences ignition, combustion and emission formation. Thus, understanding the turbulence anisotropy of in-cylinder flows is critical. Since the most widely used two-equation Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) turbulence models assume isotropic turbulence, they are not suitable for correctly capturing the anisotropic behavior of turbulence. However, large eddy simulation (LES) can account for the anisotropic behavior of turbulence. In this paper, the Reynolds stress tensor (RST) is analyzed to assess the predictive capability of RANS and LES with regard to turbulence anisotropy. The influence of mesh size on turbulence anisotropy is also looked into for multi-cycle LES.

World Championship races are the competition of the fastest motorcycle riders in the world. They are a rare selection of professionals which can ride race bikes on the absolute physical limits in the longitudinal and lateral direction. The exact understanding of race bike performance for race engineers, riders and race bike development companies is quite difficult as the movement of a race bike and a rider is a complex combination of various physical effects. The aim of the present work is to approach the understanding of race bike performance from a scientific point of view. The actual assessment of race bike performance is mainly data-driven and based on the comparison of racing lines and single measurement channels for different laps and race events. The new approach is to add physical multibody models to understand single segments from real-world racetrack measurements.

The absence of combustion engine noise pushes increasingly attention to the sound generation from other, even much weaker, sources in the acoustic design of electric vehicles. The present work focusses on the numerical computation of flow induced noise, typically emerging in components of flow guiding devices in electro-mobile applications. The method of Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) represents a powerful technique for capturing most part of the turbulent fluctuating motion, which qualifies this approach as a highly reliable candidate for providing a sufficiently accurate level of description of the flow induced generation of sound. Considering the generic test configuration of turbulent pipe flow, the present study investigates in particular the scope and the limits of incompressible Large-Eddy Simulation in predicting the evolution of turbulent sound sources to be supplied as source terms into the acoustic analogy of Lighthill.

Creep groan is an annoying brake noise at very low speeds of the vehicle. In general, stick-slip between brake disk and brake pads is believed to be the most dominating vibration mechanism of creep groan phenomena. This paper will show by sophisticated measurement techniques that stick-slip and speed-dependent friction is an important trigger. However, the overall vibration is much more complex than stick-slip reproduced by simple conveying belt minimal models. It turns out that in typical brake systems of passenger cars, creep groan appears from 15 to 25 Hz as well as 60 to 100 Hz. The mechanism from 15 to 25 Hz is highly impulsive and “hard”. Transitions between stick and slip phases trigger coupled nonlinear vibrations of the complete brake and suspension system. From 60 to 100 Hz, the vibrations show a more harmonic-like and “soft” signature, caused mainly by a speed-dependent friction behavior.

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.