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Aerodynamic vehicle design improvements require flow simulation driven iterative shape changes. The 3-D flow field simulations (CFD analysis) are not explicitly descriptive in providing the direction for aerodynamic shape changes (reducing drag force or increasing the down-force). In recent times, aerodynamic shape optimization using the adjoint method has been gaining more attention in the automotive industry. The traditional DOE (Design of Experiment) optimization method based on the shape parameters requires a large number of CFD flow simulations for obtaining design sensitivities of these shape parameters. The large number of CFD flow simulations can be significantly reduced if the adjoint method is applied. The main purpose of the present study is to demonstrate and validate the adjoint method for vehicle aerodynamic shape improvements.

Fuel lean combustion and exhaust gas dilution are known to increase the thermal efficiency and reduce NOx emissions. In this study, experiments are performed to understand the effect of equivalence ratio on flame kernel formation and flame propagation around the spark plug for different low turbulent velocities. A series of experiments are carried out for propane-air mixtures to simulate engine-like conditions. For these experiments, equivalence ratios of 0.7 and 0.9 are tested with 20 percent mass-based exhaust gas recirculation (EGR). Turbulence is generated by a shrouded fan design in the vicinity of J-spark plug. A closed loop feedback control system is used for the fan to generate a consistent flow field. The flow profile is characterized by using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) technique. High-speed Schlieren visualization is used for the spark formation and flame propagation.

Adoption of high-pressure common-rail (HPCR) fuel systems, which subject diesel fuels to higher temperatures and pressures, has brought into question the veracity of ASTM International specifications for biodiesel and biodiesel blend oxidation stability, as well as the lack of any stability parameter for diesel fuel. A controlled experiment was developed to investigate the impact of a light-duty diesel HPCR fuel system on the stability of 20% biodiesel (B20) blends under conditions of intermittent use and long-term storage in a relatively hot and dry climate. B20 samples with Rancimat induction periods (IPs) near the current 6.0-hour minimum specification (6.5 hr) and roughly double the ASTM specification (13.5 hr) were prepared from a conventional diesel and a highly unsaturated biodiesel. Four 2011 model year Volkswagen Passats equipped with HPCR fuel injection systems were utilized: one on B0, two on B20-6.5 hr, and one on B20-13.5 hr.

Development of the next generation internal combustion engines and automatic transmissions for automotive applications is a mandatory powertrain engineering activity required now and in the coming years to meet forthcoming global emissions regulations. This paper details a preliminary investigation into possible synergies for fuel consumption reduction considering emerging automotive technologies integrated into the next generation combustion engine and automatic transmission architectures. A range of hypothetical gasoline engines were created and paired with a generalized set of step gear automatic transmissions designed to meet the performance requirements of high volume longitudinal full size truck application. These designs were then run through a design of experiments orthogonal array for prediction of fuel consumption on the WLTP test schedule and stand still acceleration to 100 kph.

Wind tunnel testing of reduced-scale models is a valuable tool for aerodynamic development during the early stages of a new vehicle program, when basic design themes are being evaluated. Both full-and reduced-scale testing have been conducted for many years at the General Motors Aerodynamics Laboratory (GMAL), but with increased emphasis on aerodynamic drag reduction, it was necessary to identify additional facilities to provide increased test capacity. With vehicle development distributed among engineering teams around the world, it was also necessary to identify facilities local to those teams, to support their work. This paper describes a cooperative effort to determine the correlation among five wind tunnels: GMAL, the Glenn L.

A new apparatus for testing modern safety belt systems was developed. The apparatus design, dynamic behavior and test procedure are described. A number of tests have been conducted using this apparatus. These tests allowed identification of key performance parameters of pretensioners and load limiting retractors which are relevant to occupant protection in a crash environment. Good test repeatability was observed, which allowed comparison of different safety belt designs. The apparatus may be used for better specification and verification of safety belt properties on a subsystem level as well as for the validation of CAE models of safety belts used in simulations of occupant response to crash events.

Emission compliance at the production level has been a challenge for vehicle manufacturers. Diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC) plays a very important role in controlling the emissions for the diesel vehicles. Vehicle manufacturers tend to ‘over design’ the diesel oxidation catalyst to ‘absorb’ the production variations which seems an easier and faster solution. However this approach increases the DOC cost phenomenally which impacts the overall vehicle cost. The main objective of this paper is to address the high variation in CO tail pipe emissions which were observed on a diesel passenger car during development. This variation was posing a challenge in consistently meeting the internal product requirement/specification.

Modification of gasoline blendstock composition in preparing ethanol-gasoline blends has a significant impact on vehicle exhaust emissions. In “splash” blending the blendstock is fixed, ethanol-gasoline blend compositions are clearly defined, and effects on emissions are relatively straightforward to interpret. In “match” blending the blendstock composition is modified for each ethanol-gasoline blend to match one or more fuel properties. The effects on emissions depend on which fuel properties are matched and what modifications are made, making trends difficult to interpret. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate that exclusive use of a match blending approach has fundamental flaws. For typical gasolines without ethanol, the distillation profile is a smooth, roughly linear relationship of temperature vs. percent fuel distilled.

An area of brake system design that has remained continually resistant to objective, computer model based predictive design and has instead continued to rely on empirical methods and prior history, is that of sizing the brake pads to insure satisfactory service life of the friction material. Despite advances in CAE tools and methods, the ever-intensifying pressures of shortened vehicle development cycles, and the loss of prototype vehicle properties, there is still considerable effort devoted to vehicle-level testing on public roads using “customer-based” driving cycles to validate brake pad service life. Furthermore, there does not appear to be a firm, objective means of designing the required pad volume into the calipers early on - there is still much reliance on prior experience.

This investigation utilizes a DFSS analysis approach to determine automatic transmission gear content required to minimize fuel consumption for various powertrain - vehicle systems. L18 and L27 inner arrays with automatic transmission design and shift pattern constraint parameters were varied to determine their relative influence on fuel consumption. An outer noise array consisting of two vehicles with various engines, final drive ratios and legislated emissions test cycles was used to make a robust transmission selection based on minimizing fuel consumption. The full details of the DFSS analysis method and assumptions are presented along with a detailed examination of the results. With respect to transmission design parameters, parasitic spinloss and gear mesh efficiency were found to be most important followed by the number of gears. The DFSS analysis further revealed that unique transmission design formulations are potentially required for widely varying engines.

SAE J2562 defines the background, apparatus and the directions for modifying the Scaled Base Load Sequence for a given a wheel rated load for a wheel design. This practice has been conducted on multiple wheel designs and over one hundred wheel specimens. All of the wheels were tested to fracture. Concurrently, some of the wheel designs were found to be unserviceable in prior or subsequent proving grounds on-vehicle testing. The remainder of the wheel designs have sufficient fatigue strength to sustain the intended service for the life of the vehicle. This is termed serviceable. Using the empirical data with industry accepted statistics a minimum requirement can be projected, below which a wheel design will likely have samples unserviceable in its intended service. The projections of serviceability result in a recommendation of a minimum cycle requirement for SAE J2562 Ballasted Passenger Vehicle Load Sequence.

Diesel particulate filter (DPF) is a widely used emission control device on diesel vehicles. The DPF captures the particulate matter coming from the engine exhaust and periodically burns the collected soot via the regeneration process. There are various trigger mechanisms for this regeneration, such as distance, time, fuel and simulation. Another method widely used in the industry is the pressure drop across the filter. During calibration, relation between the pressure sensor reading and soot mass in the filter is established. This methodology is highly effective in successful DPF operation as pressure sensor is a live signal that can account for any changes in engine performance over time or any unforeseen hardware failures. On the other hand, any erroneous feedback from the sensor can lead to inaccurate soot mass prediction causing unnecessary regenerations or even needless DPF plugging concerns.

Today's sophisticated state-of-the-art powertrains with various intelligent control units (xCU) need to be calibrated and tested stand-alone as well as in interaction. Today the majority of this work is still carried out with prototype vehicles on test tracks. Moving prototype vehicle tests from the road into the lab is key in achieving shorter development times and saving development cost. This kind of frontloading requires a modular and powerful simulation of all vehicle components, test track, and driver in steady state and dynamic operation. The described HIL (Hardware In the Loop) high performance driveline dyno test bed uses driveline components and models from the engine all the way to the wheel ends. The test cell was built to do real time vehicle maneuvers and NVH testing. This test setup can emulate any road surface and grade and vehicle inertia including wheels and engine as close to reality as possible.

Under the initiative of The United States Council for Automotive Research LLC (USCAR) [1], we have developed and run comprehensive friction tests of dual clutch transmission fluids (DCTFs). The focus of this study is to quantify the anti-shudder durability over a simulated oil life of 75,000 shifts. We have evaluated six DCT fluids, including 2 fluids with known field shudder performance. Six different tests were conducted using a DC motor-driven friction test machine (GK test bench): 1. Force Controlled Continuous Slip, 2. Dynamic Friction, 3. Speed controlled Acceleration-Deceleration, 4. Motor-torque controlled Acceleration-Deceleration, 5. Static Friction, and 6. Static Break-Away. The test fluids were aged (with the clutch system) on the test bench to create a realistic aging of the entire friction system simultaneously.

A hot and cold water mixing process with a steam condenser and a chilled water heat exchanger is set up for an engine EGR fouling test. The test rig has water recycled in the loop of a pump, heat exchangers, a three-way mixing valve, and a test EGR unit. The target unit temperature is controlled by a heating, cooling and mixing process with individual valves regulating the flow-rate of saturated steam, chilled water and mixing ratio. The challenges in control design are the dead-time, interaction, nonlinearity and multivariable characteristics of heat exchangers, plus the flow recycle in the system. A systems method is applied to extract a simple linear model for control design. The method avoids the nonlinearity and interaction among different temperatures at inlet, outlet and flow-rate. The test data proves the effectiveness of systems analysis and modeling methodology. As a result, the first-order linear model facilitates the controller design.

Future diesel combustion systems may operate with significantly higher levels of boost and EGR than used with present systems. The potential benefits of higher boost and EGR were studied experimentally in a single-cylinder diesel engine with capability to adjust these parameters independently. The objective was to study the intake and exhaust conditions with a more optimum combustion phasing to minimize fuel consumption while maintaining proper constraints on emissions and combustion noise. The engine was tested at four part-load operating points using a Design of Experiments (DOE) approach. Two of the operating points correspond to low-speed and low-load conditions relevant for the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC). The other two points focus on medium load conditions representative of the World-wide harmonized Light-duty Test Procedures (WLTP).

A 2.0L twin-scroll turbocharged SIDI engine was used to evaluate low-pressure loop water-cooled external EGR at operating conditions between 1000 rpm 75 Nm and 3000 rpm 250 Nm. The engine compression ratio was increased from 9.3 to 10.9. The maximum fuel consumption reduction potential, the boost pressure requirements, and the optimized external EGR calibration were determined. Combination of higher compression ratio and external EGR achieved 5-7% better fuel economy over mid-load region when using the twin-scroll turbocharger. A similar (4-6%) better fuel economy was observed over much of the higher-load region, including peak torque condition at 1000rpm, when the required boost pressure was provided by an externally-driven auxiliary boost system (not connected to the engine). The power consumption of auxiliary boost system (supercharger loss) was estimated and considered in fuel economy assessment. The fuel consumption reduction mechanisms of EGR were also analyzed.

Corrosion inhibitors (CIs) have been used for years to protect the supply and distribution systems used for transportation of fuel from refineries. They are also used to buffer the potential organic acids present in an ethanol blended fuel to enhance storage stability. The impact of the types of inhibitors on spark-ignition engine fuel systems, specifically intake valve deposits, is known and presented in open literature. However, the relationship of the corrosion inhibitors to the powertrain intake valve deposit performance is not understood. This paper has two purposes: to present and discuss a survey of corrosion inhibitors and how they vary in concentration in the final blended fuel, specifically E85 (Ethanol Fuel Blends); and to show how variation in concentration of components of CIs and detergents impact intake valve deposit formation.

Classic, hot-spot induced pre-ignition is a phenomenon that has been observed in gasoline spark ignited engines over the past 60-70 years. With the development of turbocharged, direct-injected (DI) gasoline engines, a new pre-ignition phenomenon occurring at low engine speeds and high loads has been encountered. Termed Stochastic Pre-ignition (SPI), it has become a significant issue to address in allowing for the full potential of gasoline turbo DI technology to improve powertrain efficiency. Many researchers are studying all aspects of the causes of Stochastic Pre-ignition, including causes by oil, fuel and engine hardware systems. The focus of this specific research was to study the relationship of fuel octane and volatility to Stochastic Pre-ignition behavior utilizing a GM 2.0L Gasoline Turbocharged DI engine (LHU).

More Mg alloys are being considered for uses in the automotive industry. Since the corrosion performance of Mg alloy components in practical service environments is unknown, long term corrosion testing at automotive proving grounds will be an essential step before Mg alloy components can be implemented in vehicles. However, testing so many Mg alloy candidates for various parts is labor intensive for the corrosion engineers at the proving grounds. This report presents preliminary results in evaluating corrosion performance of Mg alloys based on rapid corrosion and electrochemical tests in the lab. In this study, four Mg alloy candidates for transmission cases and oil pans: AE44, AXJ530, MRI153M and MRI230D were tested in the lab and at General Motors Corporation Milford Proving Ground and their corrosion results were compared.