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Sector mesh modeling is the dominant computational approach for combustion system design optimization. The aim of this work is to quantify the errors descending from the sector mesh approach through three geometric modeling approaches to an optical diesel engine. A full engine geometry mesh is created, including valves and intake and exhaust ports and runners, and a full-cycle flow simulation is performed until fired TDC. Next, an axisymmetric sector cylinder mesh is initialized with homogeneous bulk in-cylinder initial conditions initialized from the full-cycle simulation. Finally, a 360-degree azimuthal mesh of the cylinder is initialized with flow and thermodynamics fields at IVC mapped from the full engine geometry using a conservative interpolation approach. A study of the in-cylinder flow features until TDC showed that the geometric features on the cylinder head (valve tilt and protrusion into the combustion chamber, valve recesses) have a large impact on flow complexity.

A new turbocharged 60° 2.7L 4V-V6 gasoline engine has been developed by Ford Motor Company for both pickup trucks and car applications. This engine was code named “Nano” due to its compact size; it features a 4-valves DOHC valvetrain, a CGI cylinder block, an Aluminum ladder, an integrated exhaust manifold and twin turbochargers. The goal of this engine is to deliver 120HP/L, ULEV70 emission, fuel efficiency improvements and leadership level NVH. This paper describes the upfront design and optimization process used for the NVH development of this engine. It showcases the use of analytical tools used to define the critical design features and discusses the NVH performance relative to competitive benchmarks.

The higher cylinder peak pressure and pressure rise rate of modern diesel and gasoline fueled engines tend to increase combustion noise while customers demand lower noise. The multiple degrees of freedom in engine control and calibration mean there is more scope to influence combustion noise but this must first be measured before it can be balanced with other attributes. An efficient means to realize this is to calculate combustion noise from the in-cylinder pressure measurements that are routinely acquired as part of the engine development process. This publication reviews the techniques required to ensure accurate and precise combustion noise measurements. First, the dynamic range must be maximized by using an analogue to digital converter with sufficient number of bits and selecting an appropriate range in the test equipment.

In the thermal expansion valve (TXV) refrigerant system, transient high-pitched whistle around 6.18 kHz is often perceived following air-conditioning (A/C) compressor engagements when driving at higher vehicle speed or during vehicle acceleration, especially when system equipped with the high-efficiency compressor or variable displacement compressor. The objectives of this paper are to conduct the noise source identification, investigate the key factors affecting the whistle excitation, and understand the mechanism of the whistle generation. The mechanism is hypothesized that the whistle is generated from the flow/acoustic excitation of the turbulent flow past the shallow cavity, reinforced by the acoustic/structural coupling between the tube structural and the transverse acoustic modes, and then transmitted to evaporator. To verify the mechanism, the transverse acoustic mode frequency is calculated and it is coincided to the one from measurement.

The effect of aerodynamically induced pre-swirl on the acoustic and performance characteristics of an automotive centrifugal compressor is studied experimentally on a steady-flow turbocharger facility. Accompanying flow separation, broadband noise is generated as the flow rate of the compressor is reduced and the incidence angle of the flow relative to the leading edge of the inducer blades increases. By incorporating an air jet upstream of the inducer, a tangential (swirl) component of velocity is added to the incoming flow, which improves the incidence angle particularly at low to mid-flow rates. Experimental data for a configuration with a swirl jet is then compared to a baseline with no swirl. The induced jet is shown to improve the surge line over the baseline configuration at all rotational speeds examined, while restricting the maximum flow rate. At high flow rates, the swirl jet increases the compressor inlet noise levels over a wide frequency range.

Refrigerant flow-induced gurgling noise is perceived in automotive refrigerant systems. In this study, the condition of the gurgling generation is investigated at the vehicle level and the fundamental root cause is identified as the two-phase refrigerant flow entering the TXV for system equipped with variable displacement compressors. By conducting literature reviews, the acoustic characteristics of the flow patterns and the parameters affecting the flow regimes in horizontal and vertical tubes are summarized. Then the gurgling mechanism is explained as the intermittent flow is developed at the evaporator inlet. In the end, the improved and feasible design for avoiding the intermittent flow (slug, plug or churn flow) or minimizing its formation is proposed and verified in refrigerant subsystem (RSS) level. Finally, the guidelines for the attenuation and suppression of the gurgle are provided.

A CAE method has been developed to address engine tonal noise and whine due to the excitation from a gerotor oil pump. The method involves a multidisciplinary approach including CFD, frequency-response structural analysis and acoustic analysis. The results from the application of the method applied to a couple of pumps with different designs are discussed. Engine tonal noise improvement through reduction in the excitation source from the pump and also stiffening the excitation path from the pump to the engine are studied. The effect of component modal alignment with oil pump orders is addressed as well.

Driveline plunge mechanism dynamics has a significant contribution to the driver's perceivable transient NVH error states and to the transmission shift quality. As it accounts for the pitch or roll movements of the front powerplant and rear drive unit, the plunging joints exhibit resisting force in the fore-aft direction under various driveline torque levels. This paper tackles the difficult task of quantifying the coefficient of static friction and the coefficient of dynamic friction in a simple to use metric as it performs in the vehicle. The comparison of the dynamic friction to the static friction allows for the detection of the occurrence of stick-slip in the slip mechanism; which enables for immediate determination of the performance of the design parameters such as spline geometry, mating parts fit and finish, and lubrication. It also provides a simple format to compare a variety of designs available to the automotive design engineer.

Drivelines used in modern pickup trucks commonly employ universal joints. This type of joint is responsible for second driveshaft order vibrations in the vehicle. Large displacements of the joint connecting the driveline and the rear axle have a detrimental effect on vehicle NVH. As leaf springs are critical energy absorbing elements that connect to the powertrain, they are used to restrain large axle windup angles. One of the most common types of leaf springs in use today is the multi-stage parabolic leaf spring. A simple SAE 3-link approximation is adequate for preliminary studies but it has been found to be inadequate to study axle windup. A vast body of literature exists on modeling leaf springs using nonlinear FEA and multibody simulations. However, these methods require significant amount of component level detail and measured data. As such, these techniques are not applicable for quick sensitivity studies at design conception stage.

OEMs are racing to develop lightweight vehicles as government regulations now mandate automakers to nearly double the average fuel economy of new cars and trucks by 2025. Lightweight materials such as aluminum, magnesium and carbon fiber composites are being used as structural members in vehicle body and suspension components. The reduction in weight in structural panels increases noise transmission into the passenger compartment. This poses a great challenge in vehicle sound package development since simply increasing weight in sound package components to reduce interior noise is no longer an option [1]. This paper discusses weight saving approaches to reduce noise level at the sources, noise transmission paths, and transmitted noise into the passenger compartment. Lightweight sound package materials are introduced to treat and reduce airborne noise transmission into multi-material lightweight body structure.

A deeper understanding of the complex phenomenology associated with the multiphase flow-induced noise and vibration in a dynamic valve is of critical importance to the automotive industry. To this purpose, a two-dimensional axisymmetric numerical model has been developed to simulate the complex processes that are responsible for the noise and vibration in a poppet valve. More specifically, an Eulerian multiphase flow model, a dynamic mesh and a user-defined function are utilized to facilitate the modeling of this complicated two-phase fluid-structure interaction problem. For a two-phase flow through the valve, our simulations showed that the deformation and breakup of gas bubbles in the gap between the poppet and the valve seat generates a vibration that arises primarily from the force imbalance between the spring and the two-phase fluid flow induced forces on the poppet.

The Multi Material Lightweight Vehicle (MMLV), developed by Magna International and Ford Motor Company, is a result of US Department of Energy project DE-EE0005574. The project demonstrated the lightweighting potential of a five-passenger sedan while maintaining vehicle performance and occupant safety. Prototype vehicles were manufactured and limited full-vehicle testing was conducted. The Mach-I vehicle design, comprised of commercially-available materials and production processes, achieved a 364 kg (23.5%) full-vehicle mass reduction. This resulted in environmental benefits and fuel economy improvements. A significant factor in the overall MMLV mass reduction was the decrease in the powertrain system weight from 340 kg (conventional) to 267 kg (MMLV). This enabled the application of a 1.0-liter three-cylinder engine as the main powerplant. By downsizing the engine, and by implementing material changes within the engine, the weight of the dressed engine was lowered by 29 kg.

While weight reduction in automotive design and manufacturing has been on-going for several years, in the area of powertrain technology lightweighting has been a difficult challenge to overcome due to functional requirements, as well as material and manufacturing constraints. The Multi Material Lightweight Vehicle (MMLV) developed by Magna International and Ford Motor Company is a result of US Department of Energy project DE-EE0005574. The project demonstrates the lightweighting potential of a five passenger sedan, while maintaining vehicle performance and occupant safety. Prototype vehicles were manufactured and limited full vehicle testing was conducted. The Mach-I vehicle design, comprised of commercially available materials and production processes, achieved a 364kg (23.5%) full vehicle mass reduction, enabling the application of a 1.0-liter three-cylinder engine resulting in a significant environmental benefit and fuel reduction.

This paper details the lightweighting efforts of the Ford Research & Advanced Transmission team as part of the Multi Material Lightweight Vehicle Project. The Multi Material Lightweight Vehicle (MMLV) developed by Magna International and Ford Motor Company is a result of a US Department of Energy project DE-EE0005574. The project demonstrates the lightweighting potential of a five passenger sedan, while maintaining vehicle performance and occupant safety. Prototype vehicles were manufactured and limited full vehicle testing was conducted. The Mach-I vehicle design, comprised of commercially available materials and production processes, achieved a 364kg (23.5%) full vehicle mass reduction, enabling the application of a 1.0-liter three cylinder engine resulting in a significant environmental benefits and fuel consumption reduction.

This paper presents the final phase of a study to develop the modeling methodology for an advanced steering assembly with a safety-enhanced steering wheel and an adaptive energy absorbing steering column. For passenger cars built before the 1960s, the steering column was designed to control vehicle direction with a simple rigid rod. In severe frontal crashes, this type of design would often be displaced rearward toward the driver due to front-end crush of the vehicle. Consequently, collapsible, detachable, and other energy absorbing steering columns emerged to address this type of kinematics. These safety-enhanced steering columns allow frontal impact energy to be absorbed by collapsing or breaking the steering columns, thus reducing the potential for rearward column movement in severe crashes. Recently, more advanced steering column designs have been developed that can adapt to different crash conditions including crash severity, occupant mass/size, seat position, and seatbelt usage.

Structural adhesives are widely used across the automotive industry for several reasons like scale-up of structural performance and enabling multi-material and lightweight designs. Development engineers know in general about the effects of adding adhesive to a spot-welded structure, but they want to quantify the benefit of adding adhesives on weight reduction or structural performance. A very efficient way is to do that by applying analytical tools. But, in most of the relevant non-linear load cases the classical lightweight theory can only help to get a basic understanding of the mechanics. For more complex load cases like full car crash simulations, the Finite Element Method (FEM) with explicit time integration is being applied to the vehicle development process. In order to understand the benefit of adding adhesives to a body structure upfront, new FEM simulation tools need to be established, which must be predictive and efficient.

This research focuses on study of feasibility of using ceramic oxide coatings on the cylinder wall of hypoeutectic aluminum silicon alloy engine blocks. Coatings are achieved in an aqueous electrolytic bath and composed of both alpha and gamma phases of Al2O3 and have shown promising wear resistance. Composition and acidity level of the electrolyte creates a variation of surface roughness, coating hardness and thickness which has direct influence on the wear behavior of the sliding surfaces. The effect of load bearing and coating morphology on coefficient of friction was studied. SEM images of the substrate showed no predominant wear behavior or delamination. Coefficient of friction and wear rate were also measured. This study shows the importance of surface structure on oil retention and wear rate. Coarser coatings can be desirable under starved oil condition since they show lower coefficient of friction.

There have been many articles published in the last decade or so concerning the components of an electronic stability control (ESC) system, as well as numerous statistical studies that attempt to predict the effectiveness of such systems relative to crash involvement. The literature however is free from papers that discuss how engineers might develop such systems in order to achieve desired steering, handling, and stability performance. This task is complicated by the fact that stability control systems are very complex and their designs and what they can do have changed considerably over the years. These systems also differ from manufacturer to manufacturer and from vehicle to vehicle in a given maker of automobiles. In terms of ESC hardware, differences can include all the components as well as the addition or absence of roll rate sensors or active steering gears to name a few.

The acoustic and performance characteristics of an automotive centrifugal compressor are studied on a steady-flow turbocharger test bench, with the goal of advancing the current understanding of compression system instabilities at the low-flow range. Two different ducting configurations were utilized downstream of the compressor, one with a well-defined plenum (large volume) and the other with minimized (small) volume of compressed air. The present study measured time-resolved oscillations of in-duct and external pressure, along with rotational speed. An orifice flow meter was incorporated to obtain time-averaged mass flow rate. In addition, fast-response thermocouples captured temperature fluctuations in the compressor inlet and exit ducts along with a location near the inducer tips.

For purposes of reducing development time, cost and risk, the majority of new vehicles are derived strongly or at least generally from a surrogate vehicle, often of the same general size or body style. Previous test data and lessons learned can be applied as a starting point for design of the new vehicle, especially at early phases of the design before definite design decisions have been finalized and before prototype of production test hardware is available. This is true as well of vehicle NVH development where most new vehicles being developed are variants of existing vehicles for which the main noise transfer paths from sources of interest are already understood via test results and existing targets. The NVH targets for new vehicles are defined via benchmarking, market considerations, and other higher-level decisions. The objective is then to bridge the gap between test data from surrogate vehicles to direct support of the NVH development of new vehicle programs.