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This paper compares the results from three human factors studies conducted in a motion-based simulator in 2008, 2014 and 2023, to highlight the trends in driver's response to Forward Collision Warning (FCW). The studies were motivated by the goal to develop an effective HMI (Human-Machine Interface) strategy that enables the required driver's response to FCW while minimizing the level of annoyance of the feature. All three studies evaluated driver response to a baseline-FCW and no-FCW conditions. Additionally, the 2023 study included two modified FCW chime variants: a softer FCW chime and a fading FCW chime. Sixteen (16) participants, balanced for gender and age, were tested for each group in all iterations of the studies. The participants drove in a high-fidelity simulator with a visual distraction task (number reading). After driving 15 minutes in a nighttime rural highway environment, a surprise forward collision threat arose during the distraction task.

The Composite Hybrid Automotive Suspension System Innovative Structures (CHASSIS) is a project that developed structural commercial vehicle suspension components in high volume utilising hybrid materials and joining techniques to offer a viable lightweight production alternative to steel. Three components were selected for the project:- Front Subframe Front Lower Control Arm (FLCA) Rear Deadbeam Axle

A cast magnesium subframe was designed and manufactured for a C Class sedan to reduce weight and improve vehicle fuel economy. The magnesium subframe achieved 5 kg (32%) weight reduction from the equivalent steel subframe and met all the required structural performance targets. All the joints of the magnesium subframe were tested for bolt load retention. The tests were conducted with a temperature profile of 100°C to -30°C designed to investigate the creep behavior of the selected magnesium alloy AE44 under high stress.

This study reports the corrosion performance of three different coating strategies tested on an AE44 high performance magnesium strut tower brace used on the 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500. The alloy was selected due to its improved structural performance at higher temperatures over conventional AM60B magnesium die castings. The first coating strategy used no pretreatment, conversion coating, or topcoat to gage the baseline corrosion performance of the uncoated alloy. The second coating strategy used a conventional pretreatment commonly used on AM60B alloy. The third used a ceramic-based conversion coating. A textured (stipple) powder coat was then applied to the two non-baseline parts over the pretreatment. All three coating strategies were then evaluated by comparing the corrosion performance after cyclic corrosion testing for 12 weeks using the Ford L-467 test.

This paper focuses on finding and analyzing the relevant parameters affecting traffic flow when autonomous vehicles are introduced for ride hailing applications and autonomous shuttles are introduced for circulator applications in geo-fenced urban areas. For this purpose, different scenarios have been created in traffic simulation software that model the different levels of autonomy, traffic density, routes, and other traffic elements. Similarly, software that specializes in vehicle dynamics, physical limitations, and vehicle control has been used to closely simulate realistic autonomous vehicle behavior under such scenarios. Different simulation tools for realistic autonomous vehicle simulation and traffic simulation have been merged together in this paper, creating a realistic simulator with Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL), Traffic-in-the-Loop (TiL), and Software in-the-Loop (SiL) simulation capabilities.

The Composite Hybrid Automotive Suspension System Innovative Structures (CHASSIS) is a project to develop structural commercial vehicle suspension components in high volume utilising hybrid materials and joining techniques to offer a viable lightweight production alternative to steel. Three components are in scope for the project:- Front Subframe Front Lower Control Arm (FLCA) Rear Deadbeam Axle

To evaluate vehicle crash performance in the early design stages, a reliable fracture model is needed in crash simulations to predict material fracture initiation and propagation. In this paper, a generalized incremental stress state dependent damage model (GISSMO) in LS-DYNA® was calibrated and validated for a 780-MPa third generation advanced high strength steels (AHSS), namely 780 XG3TM steel that combines high strength and ductility. The fracture locus of the 780 XG3TM steel was experimentally characterized under various stress states including uniaxial tension, shear, plane strain and equi-biaxial stretch conditions. A process to calibrate the parameters in the GISSMO model was developed and successfully applied to the 780 XG3TM steel using the fracture test data for these stress states.

Real-world second-by-second vehicle driving cycle data is very important for vehicle research and development. A project solely dedicated to generating such information would be tremendously costly and time consuming. Alternatively, we developed such a database by utilizing two publicly available passenger vehicle travel surveys: 2004-2006 Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) Travel Survey and 2011 Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) Travel Survey. The surveys complement each other - the former is in low time resolution but covers driver operation for over one year whereas the latter is in high time resolution but represents only one-week-long driving operation. After analyzing the PSRC survey, we chose 382 vehicles, each of which continuously operated for one year, and matched their trips to all the ARC trips. The matching is carried out based on trip distance first, then on average speed, and finally on duration.

The usage of Boron steel in the South American automotive industry has been increasing in recent years. Considering its high hardening properties, sheet metal parts can only be manufactured using a hot forming process, as compared to a conventional cold forming process; however, the hot stamping process offers the advantage to stamp a part in a single die vs. multiple dies using a regular cold stamping process. The main objective is to present the advantages of constructing the whole AB ring reinforcement out of Boron steel and made out of a single die, and no welding among the A pillar reinforcement, B Pillar reinforcement and rocker panel. This type of design has helped to achieve crash safety performance goals, enhance the structural characteristics of joints, improve dimensional control, reduce the number of welds, manage BIW overall weight and improve torsion rigidity.

The fuel consumption of a vehicle is shown to be linearly proportional to (1) total vehicle work required to drive the cycle due to mass and acceleration, tire friction, and aerodynamic drag and (2) the powertrain (PT) mechanical losses, which are approximately proportional to the engine displaced volume per unit distance travelled (displacement time gearing). The fuel usage increases linearly with work and displacement over a wide range of applications, and the rate of increase is inversely proportional to the marginal efficiency of the engine. The theoretical basis for these predictions is reviewed. Examples from current applications are discussed, where a single PT is used across several vehicles. A full vehicle cycle simulation model also predicts a linear relationship between fuel consumption, vehicle work, and displacement time gearing and agrees well with the application data.

Electric vehicles are highly sensitive to variations in environmental factors (like temperature, drive style, grade, etc.). The distribution of real-world range of electric vehicles due to these environmental factors is an important consideration in target setting. This distribution can be obtained by running several simulations of an electric vehicle for a number of high-frequency velocity, grade, and temperature real-world trip profiles. However, in order to speed up simulation time, a unique set of drive profiles that represent the entire real-world data set needs to be developed. In this study, we consider 40,000 unique velocity and grade profiles from various real-world applications in EU. We generate metadata that describes these profiles using trip descriptor variables. Due to the large number of descriptor variables when considering second order effects, we normalize each descriptor and use principal component analysis to reduce the dimensions of our dataset to six components.

The initiative of this paper is focused on improving the heat dissipation from the pressure wheel of a laser welding assembly in order to achieve a longer period of use. The work examines the effects of different geometrical designs on the thermal performance of pressure wheel assembly during a period of cooling time. Three disc designs were manufactured for testing: Design 1 – a plain wheel, Design 2 – a pierced wheel, and Design 3 – a wheel with ventilating vanes. All of the wheels were made of carbon steel. The transient thermal reaction were compared. The experimental results indicate that the ventilated wheel cools down faster with the convection in the ventilated channels, while the solid plain wheel continues to possess higher temperatures. A comparison among the three different designs indicates that the Design 3 has the best cooling performance.

At various milestones during a vehicle’s development program, different CAE models are created to assess NVH error states of concern. Moreover, these CAE models may be developed in different commercial CAE software packages, each one with its own unique advantages and strengths. Fortunately, due to the wide spread acceptance that the Functional Mock-up Interface (FMI) standard gained in the CAE community over the past few years, many commercial CAE software now support cosimulation in one form or the other. Cosimulation allows performing multi-domain/multi-resolution simulations of the vehicle, thereby combining the advantages of various modeling techniques and software. In this paper, we explore cosimulation of full 3D vehicle model developed in MSC ADAMS with 1D driveline model developed in LMS AMESim. The target application of this work is investigation of vehicle NVH error states associated with both hybridized and non-hybridized powertrains.

Modeling of High Voltage (HV) wires is an important aspect of vehicle safety simulations for electrified powertrains to understand the potential tearing of the wire sheath or pinching of HV wiring. The behavior of the HV wires must be reviewed in safety simulations to identify potential hazards associated with HV wire being exposed, severed, or in contact with ground planes during a crash event. Modeling HV wire is challenging due to the complexity of the physical composition of the wire, which is usually comprised of multiple strands bundled and often twisted together to form the HV electrical conductor. This is further complicated by the existence of external insulating sheathing materials to prevent HV exposure during normal operating conditions. This paper describes a proposed method to model and characterize different types of HV wires for usage in component- and vehicle-level safety models.

Ensuring durability is one of the key requirements while developing cooling modules for various powertrains. Typically, road surface induced loads are the main driving force behind mechanical failures. While developing the components, road load accelerations are utilized in CAE simulations to predict the high-stress regions and estimate the fatigue life of the components mounted on the body. In certain scenarios where components are mounted to the body and attached to the engine with hoses, the components can experience additional loads associated with engine vibration. This attachment scheme requires a different analysis methodology to determine fatigue life. In the proposed paper, we look at the effect of engine motion (EM) on the fatigue life of internal transmission oil cooler (ITOC) which is mounted on the body through radiator and is simultaneously connected to the engine using a steel pipe. We propose a new CAE methodology taking into account the engine motion displacements.

While Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS) and the next generation AHSS grades offer improved crash safety and reduced weight for vehicles, the global stiffness and NVH performance are often compromised due to reduced material thickness. This paper discusses an advanced method of evaluating the joint effectiveness on contribution to global stiffness and NVH performance of vehicles. A stiffness contribution ratio is proposed initiatively in this research, which evaluates the current contribution of the joints to the global stiffness and NVH performance of vehicles. Another parameter, joint effectiveness factor, has been used to study the potential of each joint on enhancing the global stiffness. The critical joints to enhance the vehicle stiffness and NVH performance can be identified based on above two parameters, and design changes be made to those critical joints to improve the vehicle performance.

Software for autonomous vehicles is highly complex and requires vast amount of vehicle testing to achieve a certain level of confidence in safety, quality and reliability. According to the RAND Corporation, a 100 vehicle fleet running 24 hours a day 365 days a year at a speed of 40 km/hr, would require 17 billion driven kilometers of testing and take 518 years to fully validate the software with 95% confidence such that its failure rate would be 20% better than the current human driver fatality rate [1]. In order to reduce cost and time to accelerate autonomous software development, Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) simulation is used to supplement vehicle testing. For autonomous vehicles, path following controls are an integral part for achieving lateral control. Combining the aforementioned concepts, this paper focuses on a real-time implementation of a path-following lateral controller, developed by Freund and Mayr [2].

Automobile body panels made from advanced high strength steel (AHSS) provide high strength-to-mass ratio and thus AHSS are important for automotive light-weighting strategy. However, in order to increase their use, the significant wear damage that AHSS sheets cause to the trim dies should be reduced. The wear of dies has undesirable consequences including deterioration of trimmed parts' edges. In this research, die wear measurement techniques that consisted of white-light optical interferometry methods supported by large depth-of-field optical microscopy were developed. 1.4 mm-thick DP980-type AHSS sheets were trimmed using dies made from AISI D2 steel. A clearance of 10% of the thickness of the sheets was maintained between the upper and lower dies. The wear of the upper and lower dies was evaluated and material abrasion and chipping were identified as the main damage features at the trim edges.

This paper proposes a method to make diagnostic/prognostic judgment about the health of a tire, in term of its wear, using existing on-board sensor signals. The approach focuses on using an estimate of the effective rolling radius (ERR) for individual tires as one of the main diagnostic/prognostic means and it determines if a tire has significant wear and how long it can be safely driven before tire rotation or tire replacement are required. The ERR is determined from the combination of wheel speed sensor (WSS), Global Positioning sensor (GPS), the other motion sensor signals, together with the radius kinematic model of a rolling tire. The ERR estimation fits the relevant signals to a linear model and utilizes the relationship revealed in the magic formula tire model. The ERR can then be related to multiple sources of uncertainties such as the tire inflation pressure, tire loading changes, and tire wear.

An engine cooling system in an automotive vehicle comprises of heat exchangers such as a radiator, charge air cooler and oil coolers along with engine cooling fan. Typical automotive engine-cooling fan assembly includes an electric motor mounted on a shroud that encloses the radiator core. One of main drivers of fan shroud design is Noise, Vibration, and Harshness (NVH) requirements without compromising the main function of airflow for cooling requirements. In addition, there is also a minimum stiffness requirement of fan shroud which is often overlooked in arriving at optimal design of it. Low Speed Damageability (LSD) assessment of an automotive vehicle is about minimizing the cost of repair of vehicle damages in low speed crashes. In low speed accidents, these fan motors are subjected to sudden decelerations which cause fan motors to swing forward thereby damaging the radiator core. So designing fan shroud for low speed damageability is of importance today.