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Recently, as part of the effort to enhance fuel efficiency and reduce costs for eco-friendly vehicles, the R-gearless system has been implemented in the TMED (P)HEV system. Due to the removal of the reverse gear, a distinct backward driving method needs to be developed, allowing the Electronic Motor (e-Motor) system to facilitate backward movement in the TMED (P)HEV system. However, the capability of backward driving with the e-Motor is limited because of partial failure in the high-voltage system of an R-gearless system. Thus, we demonstrate that it is possible to improve backward driving problems by applying a new fail-safe strategy. In the event of a high-voltage battery system failure, backward driving can be achieved using the e-Motor with constant voltage control by the Hybrid Starter Generator (HSG), as proposed in this study.

Even if an optimal design is produced in the mid-to-late stages of development, when the maturity of development is increasing, it is already difficult to accept the proposal between the organizations and functions. In case the optimal proposal is made with a small amount of information in the preceding stage, it will be helpful for mutual decision-making. In addition, if all members have a system and development environment that enables access and utilization of necessary data in a timely manner, it is possible to produce quick results through collaboration. To implement such a system and development environment, “digital modeling" of tangible and intangible assets will be essential and to implement an "integrated IT environment" that can access and utilize digital models. Until now, Hyundai Motor Company has not yet fully established a digital development environment that all researchers can simultaneously utilize during the concept development stage.

Engine off control is conducted on parallel hybrid vehicles in order to reduce fuel consumption. It is efficient in terms of fuel economy, however, noise and vibration is generated on engine cranking and transferred through engine mount on every mode transition from EV to HEV. Engine crank position control has been studied in this paper in order to reduce vibration generated when next cranking starts. System modeling of an architecture composed of an engine, P1 and P2 motors has been conducted. According to the prior studies, there exists correlation between crank vibration level and the crank angle. Thus a method to locate pistons on a specific crank angle which results in a local minimum of vibration magnitude could be considered. The P1 motor facilitates this crank position control when engine turns off, for its location directly mounted on a crankshaft allows the system model to obtain more precise crank position estimation and improved linearity in torque control as well.

To improve the fuel efficiency and satisfy the strict emission regulations, the development of internal combustion engine gets more complicated in both hardware and software perspectives, and the margins for durability and NVH quality become narrower, which could result in poor NVH robustness in harsh engine operating conditions. In this paper, we investigate experimentally the camshaft impact noise mechanism relating the valve train and timing chain forces to detailed motion of the camshaft and the chain tensioner. After the initial investigation of identifying the impact timings and specific engine operating points when the noise occurs, the camshaft orbital motion inside of the sliding bearing is measured and visualized with the proximity sensors with calibration after sensor mounting, in addition to the chain tensioner movements.

As the carbon neutrality to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has become a global movement, the development of power sources using carbon-free fuels is an essential task for the industry. Accordingly, many companies in various fields that need carbon reduction are striving to develop power sources and build energy value chains using carbon-free or carbon-neutral fuels such as hydrogen and E-fuel. Ammonia, which is also a carbon-free fuel, stands as an efficient energy vector delivering high energy density and flexibility in transportation and storage, capable of mitigating hydrogen’s key drawbacks. However, difficulty of controlling combustion of ammonia due to its fuel characteristics limited the development of internal combustion engines using ammonia to the basic research stage in the limited operating conditions. Hyundai Motor Company presents the development of ammonia fueled 4-cylinder SI engine using direct injection strategy, designed based on 2.5L LPG T-DI engine.

Optimizing fuel injection spray is essential to comply with stringent future emission regulations for hybrid vehicles and internal combustion engine vehicles, and the spray characteristics and geometry must be robust for various engine operating conditions. This study presents experimental and numerical assessments of spray for lateral-mounted gasoline direct injection (GDI) sprays with different plume arrangements to analyze collapse characteristics, which can significantly deteriorate the geometry and characteristics of fuel sprays. Novel spray characterization methods are applied to analyze complex spray collapse behaviors using LED-based diffusive back-illuminated extinction imaging (DBIEI) and 3D computed tomographic (CT) image reconstruction. High-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are performed to analyze the detailed spray characteristics besides experimental characterization.

The body stiffness plays a key role in vehicle performance, such as noise and vibration, ride and handling, durability and so on. In particular, a body D-pillar ring structure is the most sensitive affecting the body stiffness on vehicle with tail gate. Therefore, since D-pillar body ring structure for high stiffness and lightweight is required, an optimized design methodology that simultaneously satisfies the requirements was studied. It focused on a methodology that body engineering designers can optimize design parameters easily and quickly by themselves in the preceding stages of vehicle’s styling distribution and design conceptual planning. First, it is important to establish the body stiffness design strategy by predicting the body stiffness with the vehicle’s styling at early design stage. The methodology to predict body stiffness with the styling and body dimension specification parameters was introduced.

NVH analysis based on numerical simulations before actual test vehicle is available becomes common process in the automotive industry. Furthermore, the latest work scope is extending even to conceptual study in the very early design stage, beyond traditional numerical simulations simply using 3-D CAD data. In case when reasonable information is provided at this very early vehicle development stage, a better decision on the design concept would be possible, and subsequent design process can be carried out in more efficient manner. The core of this trend is that it allows us to predict vehicle performance at the conceptual design stage without 3-D CAD data, and then, with this prediction, to suggest meaningful design directions for next stage. From this point of view, FRF-Based Substructuring (FBS) methodology has potential to be used as an appropriate tool for this purpose.

An experimental study was conducted on a multi-cylinder engine to understand the feasibility of a six-stroke homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) operation under stoichiometric conditions. State-of-the-art technologies such as continuously variable valve duration (CVVD) and high-pressure gasoline direct injection (GDI) were experimentally exploited to increase the degree of freedom of engine control. The motivation of six-stroke HCCI combustion is to remedy the load limitation and the cyclic variation in four-stroke HCCI combustion with two additional strokes: compression and expansion strokes. The six-stroke HCCI combustion occurs in the following order. First, hot residual gas is trapped by applying negative valve overlap (NVO). Next, fresh air enters, fuel is injected, and lean HCCI combustion occurs in the 1st power stroke (PS). Subsequently, additional fuel is injected, and the 2nd combustion occurs with the remaining oxygen in the two additional strokes.

As global emission standards are becoming more stringent, it is necessary to increase thermal efficiency through the high compression ratio in spark-ignited engines. Various studies are being conducted to mitigate knocking caused by an increased compression ratio, which requires an understanding of the combustion phenomena inside the combustion chamber. In particular, the in-cylinder flow is a major factor affecting the entire combustion process from the generation to the propagation of flames. In the field of spark-ignited engine research, where interest in the concept of lean combustion and the expansion of the EGR supply is increasing, flow analysis is essential to ensure a rapid flame propagation speed and stable combustion process. In this study, the flow around the spark plug was measured by the Laser Doppler Velocimetry system, and the correlation with combustion in spark-ignited engines was analyzed.

Drivers continually require steering performance improvement, particularly in the area of feedback from the road. In this study, we develop a new electrically-assisted steering logic by 1) analyzing existing steering systems to determine key factors, 2) modeling an ideal steering system from which to obtain a desirable driver torque, 3) developing a rack force observer to faithfully represent road information and 4) building a feedback compensator to track the tuned torque. In general, the estimator uses the driver torque, assist torque and other steering system signals. However, the friction of the steering system is difficult to estimate accurately. At high speed, where steering feeling is very important, greater friction results in increased error. In order to solve this problem, we design two estimators generated from a vehicle model and a steering system model. The observer that uses two estimators can reflect various operating conditions by using the strengths of each method.

In the past few years, technological innovations in the automobile industry took vehicle performance to the next level. One such innovation is frame integrated panel door. This type of door helps automobile companies to have the advantages of both conventional panel and frame type doors. Though it has a good number of advantages, there are some drawbacks too. It requires improvements in its quality, NVH performance, weight and etc. Quality of a door is low due to the limitations in structural design and manufacturing technologies. And it is difficult to have a robust structure which leads to degradation of key performing factors such as NVH. For a lightweight vehicle, it is important to design an optimized structure for saving weight, without compromising its performance. In order to overcome these drawbacks a new optimized design structure is required for door system.

The integration of SCR catalyst into diesel-particulate filter (SDPF) may be one of most viable ways to meet upcoming stringent emission regulations with new test protocols such as Worldwide harmonized Light vehicles Test Cycles (WLTC) and Real Driving Emissions (RDE) requirements. The chabazite-structured SSZ-13-based catalysts enabled the wide implementation of urea-SCR technology for mobile applications due to their robust thermal stability up to 750°C compared to the thermally unstable ZSM-5-based technologies. However, the thermally stable Cu-SSZ-13 catalyst starts losing its initial activity with the increase of aging time at 850°C, where the SCR catalyst on SDPF can possibly be exposed during filter regeneration under a drop-to-idle (DTI) condition. Therefore, more durable SCR catalysts that survive under higher temperatures have been strongly desired in automotive industry. Recently, we found Cu-exchanged high silica LTA revealed an excellent hydrothermal stability.

Generally, vehicles do not need power during deceleration. Therefore, the fuel efficiency can be improved by stopping the fuel injection in this period. However, when the fuel cut is activated, NOx is emitted immediately after fuel cut. During the fuel cut period, a large amount of fresh air flows into the catalytic converter installed on a vehicle since there is no combustion. Thus, the catalytic materials are converted into an oxidizing atmosphere. As a result, NOx purification performance of the catalyst deteriorates, and eventually NOx is emitted when combustion restarts. The quantity of NOx in this period is relatively small. However, in case of increasing fuel cuts, emission problem could arise. Therefore, in order to meet the stringent regulation such as LEV III-SULEV20 or 30, the number of fuel cuts need to be limited. The problem is that this strategy leads to a disadvantage of fuel efficiency.

Recently, the design of automotive headlamps has become diversified and complicated according to customer needs. Hence, structural complexity of the headlamps has also increased. Complex structure of the headlamps inevitably causes a disturbance in air circulation. For this reason, inadvertent micro-sized water droplets, called fogging, are condensed on the inner surface of headlamp lens due to temperature difference between the inner and outer lens surfaces. To circumvent fogging inside of the headlamp lens, an anti-fogging coating is indispensable. Conventionally, diverse surfactants have been adopted as substantial material for the anti-fogging coating. However, the usage of the surfactants causes undesirable side effect such as water mark arising from vapor condensation, which is an important issue that must be fully resolved. In this study, we developed an innovative anti-fogging coating material without using conventional surfactant.

This model based investigation is carried out in order to control the half order modulation for diesel engines using by virtual calibration approach and proposes a feedback control strategy to mitigate cylinder to cylinder imbalance from asymmetric cylinders torque production. Combustion heat release analysis is performed on test data to understand the root cause of observed cylinder to cylinder pressure variations. The injected fuel variations are shown to cause the observed pressure variations between cylinders. A feedback control strategy based on measured crank shaft position is devised to control the half order modulation to balance the combustion pressure profile between cylinders. This control strategy is implemented in Simulink and is tested in closed-loop with the diesel engine model in AMESim. The closed-loop performance indicates that the half order modulation is considerably improved while having minimal impact on the fuel consumption.

The worldwide fuel economy compliance level has been tightening, at the same time, LEV-III/Euro-6d/China-6/BS-6 regulations for NMOG and NOx emissions are being introduced or already effective. Therefore, intensive research effort has been conducted in order to improve the fuel efficiency of passenger cars and reduce exhaust emission. In response to these demands, turbocharged gasoline direct injection (TGDI) engine is being introduced for gasoline vehicles in consideration of fuel efficiency improvement, high output and driving performance compared to naturally aspirated (NA) engine. However, due to its larger thermal mass from the turbo hardware in the exhaust, it suffers from the cold-start emission. The main hazardous gases emitted from gasoline vehicles are CO, HC and NOx, and a three-way catalyst (TWC) is installed for the purification of these harmful emissions.

As environmental problems such as global warming are emerging, regulations on automobile exhaust gas are strengthened and various exhaust gas reduction technologies are being developed in various countries in order to satisfy exhaust emission regulations. Exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) technology is a very effective way to reduce nitrogen oxides (NOx) at high combustion temperatures by using EGR coolers to lower the combustion temperature. This EGR cooler has been mass-produced in stainless steel, but it is expensive and heavy. Recently, high efficiency and compactness are required for the EGR cooler to meet the new emission regulation. If aluminum material is applied to the EGR cooler, heat transfer efficiency and light weight can be improved due to high heat transfer coefficient of aluminum compared to conventional stainless steel, but durability is insufficient. Therefore, the aluminum EGR cooler has been developed to enhance performance and durability.

In recent years, the emerging technology competitions in automotive industry are improving engine efficiency and electronizing for coping with stringent fuel-economy regulations. However, fuel-economy technologies such as engine down-sizing and numerous electronic parts entrust burden plastic materials acing as mainly electric insulation and housing to have to be higher performance, especially temperature endurance. Engineering plastics (EPs) have critical limitations in terms of degradation by heat. Heat-resisting additives in EP are generally used to be anti-degradation as activating non-radical decomposition of peroxide. However, it could not be effective way to impede the degradation in long term heat aging over 1,000 hours at high temperature above 180 °C. In this study, we suggested the new solution called ‘shield effect’ that is purposeful oxidation at the surface and local crystallization of EP to stop prevent penetrating oxygen to inside of that.

This paper examines the effect of pulse-and-glide (PnG) driving strategies on the fuel efficiency when applied on parallel HEVs. Several PnG strategies are proposed, and these include the electrical, mechanical, and combined PnG strategies. The electrical PnG strategy denotes the hybrid powertrain control tactics in which the battery is charged or discharged according to the power demanded while maintaining the constant vehicle speed. On the other hand, the mechanical PnG strategy denotes the powertrain control tactics in which the vehicle accelerates or decelerates according to the power load while minimizing the battery usage. The combined PnG strategy involves both electrical and mechanical strategies to find a balanced point in between them. Here, a tradeoff relationship between the fuel efficiency and the vehicle drivability related to the tracking performance of the desired target speed is revealed.