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To help ensure that engine components are as reliable as customers need them to be, we have thus far evaluated them by establishing development target values based on market requirements, having engineers design parts to meet these requirements, then performing durability tests. These durability requirements are calculated to provide a margin of safety for use in the marketplace. However, depending on the part, these evaluation criteria can be overly aggressive against how it is used in the market, having led to a decrease in development efficiency as engine systems become more advanced. Therefore, in this study, we focused on the subject of high-cycle fatigue, which affects numerous components and is highly scalable, and built up a process for estimating the life span of components that would enable us to conduct appropriate evaluations that reflect how parts are truly used in the market.

The piston and piston ring are used in a severe contact environment in engine durability tests, which causes severe wear to the piston ring groove, leading to significant development costs for countermeasures. Conventionally, in order to ensure functional feasibility through wear on the piston top ring groove (hereinafter “ring groove”), only functional evaluations through actual engine durability testing were performed, and there was an issue in determining the limit value for the actual amount of wear itself. Because of this, the mechanism that may cause wear on the ring groove was clarified through past research, but this resulted in judgment criteria with some leeway from the perspective of functional assurance. To establish judgment criteria, it was necessary to understand both functional effect from ring groove wear and the mechanism behind it.

In recent years, an increase in vehicle weight due to the electrification of automobiles, specifically EVs, has increased the input loads on anti-vibration rubber parts. Moreover, the characteristics of these loads have also changed due to the rotational drive of electric motors, regenerative braking, and other factors. When designing a vehicle, in advance it is necessary to set specifications that take into account the spring characteristics and durability of the anti-vibration rubber parts in order to meet functional requirements. In this study, the hyperelastic and fatigue characteristics (S-N diagram and Haigh diagram) of Rubbers which is widely used for anti-vibration rubber parts, were experimentally obtained, and structural and fatigue analyses using FEM (Finite Element Method) were conducted in conjunction with spring and fatigue tests of anti-vibration rubber parts to determine the correlation between their spring and fatigue characteristics.

Model-based Development (MBD) has been employed for engine development to reconcile the contradictory relationship between numerous functions and systems at a high level and in a short span of time. However, in actuality, as engines have become more advanced, it has become challenging to even satisfy the requirements of individual components. Moreover, reconciling multiple contradictory functions like engine power and strength and durability performance, as well as coordinating many related systems, requires an even higher level of skill. Such harmonization techniques require total optimization studies that cover a wide range of designs, and which requires several years of examination with current development processes. Multi-objective Design Exploration (MODE) methods [1] using parametric models [2] and surrogate models [3] are being used to shorten the development period and achieve more balanced designs.

Recent automobile engines are equipped with many devices that are driven by oil pressure. Generally, engine oil is used for oil pressure, and in addition to its conventional functions of lubrication and cooling, etc., it also plays an important role in accurately driving such devices. One of the factors that can interfere with the characteristics of engine oil is air contamination. Excessive air contamination can cause issues with driving devices. Although there are various factors that contribute to air contamination, this paper focuses on, and attempts to help predict, the air generated by engine oil falling and colliding with the surface of the oil in the oil pan as it returns from the top to the bottom of the engine. Using the particle method as the prediction method, the coupled Moving Particle Simulation (MPS) and Discrete Element Method (DEM) calculations were used to represent the generation of air.

Powertrain development requires an efficient development process with no rework and model-based development (MBD). In addition, to performance design that achieves low CO2 emissions is also required. Furthermore, it also demands fuel economy performance considering real-world usage conditions, and in North America, the EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) 5-cycle, which evaluates performance in a combination of various environments, is applied. This evaluation mode necessitates predicting performance while considering engine heat flow. Particularly, simulation technology that considers behavior based on engine temperature for Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) is necessary. Additionally, in the development trend of vehicle aerodynamic improvement, variable devices like Active Grille Shutter (AGS) are utilized to contribute to reducing CO2 emissions.

The challenges concerning noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) performance in the vehicle cabin have been significantly changed by the powertrain shift from a conventional drive unit with an internal-combustion engine (ICE) to electric drive units (eAxles). However, there is few research regarding the impact of electrification on NVH considering the influence of the context such as multi-stimuli and traffic rules during a real-life driving. In this study, the authors conducted test drives using EVs and ICEVs on public roads in Europe and conducted a statistical analysis of the difference in driver impression of NVH performance based on interviews during actual driving. The impression data were categorized into clusters corresponding to related phenomena or features based on driver comments. Furthermore, the vehicles data (vehicle speed, acceleration, GPS information, etc.) were recorded to associate the driver impressions with the vehicle’s conditions when the comments were made.

With the promotion of electrification of powertrains, development using the simulation model is being promoted to achieve highly efficient development of the powertrains. Since the hybrid powertrain includes many subsystems, the complexity of the development process bloats the development scale. To proceed with large-scale development efficiently, it is necessary to utilize simulation. Furthermore, to maximize efficiency, improvement in development speed is required. In this study, we selected the real-time technology for 1D engine model that is suitable for the concurrent development aiming at increasing the development speed. The real-time technology achieved a high prediction accuracy, a lower modeling workload, and reliable real-time computation speed. And as a practical application of this technology, we conducted collaborative development of engine and transmission using the real-time engine model.

A 3.5-L natural aspiration engine was developed to enhance the environmental performance of V6 engines to be used in Honda’s North American market. This engine changes from the single overhead cam architecture for the cylinder head found in the previous engine to a double overhead cam architecture and adopted variable timing control intake and exhaust variable cylinder management for the valve system. This increased the degree of freedom in setting valve timing across the operating range compared to the past, increased the intake air volume in the high-load range, and realized reduction of pumping loss under low and medium load. The intake port, combustion chamber, and piston shape related to combustion have been newly designed to enhance in-cylinder flow. In addition, while following the cooling structure of previous engine, water channels were installed between the exhaust valves and between the cylinder bores to enhance the cooling performance of the combustion chamber.

Honda has developed a new hybrid system targeting the C and D segments that aims for the latest environmental performance, high fuel economy, and enhanced acceleration feeling in driving. The new engine to be applied to this new hybrid system has been developed with the goal of expanding the high thermal efficiency range, realizing the latest environmental performance, and high quietness. The new engine has adopted the Atkinson cycle and cooled exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) carried over from the previous model [1], and employed an in-cylinder direct fuel injection system with fuel injection pressure of 35 MPa. The combustion chamber and ports have been newly designed to match the fuel system changes. By realizing high-speed combustion, the engine realized a high compression ratio with the mechanical compression ratio of 13.9.

With the objective of further enhancing the engine performance of the Acura brand and the environmental performance of the Honda brand in relation to the North American market, where there is a need for powertrains with driving force margin for SUVs and pickup trucks, Honda has developed a 3.0 L turbocharged engine and a 3.5 L naturally aspirated engine. Both engines adopt the same newly developed valvetrain structure and share main engine geometries. These newly developed engines are equipped with a compact new valvetrain structure combining Hydraulic Lash Adjusters and roller rocker arms with a valve-lifter based Variable Cylinder Management system which has an internalized switching mechanism. This newly developed valvetrain made it possible to incorporate dual overhead cam structure without enlarging the cylinder head shape relative to the single overhead cam structure.

According to some papers, the label fuel economy and the actual fuel economy experienced by the customers may exhibit a gap. One of the reasons may stem from the aerodynamic drag variations due to the natural wind. The fuel consumption is measured through bench test under several driving modes by using the road load as input condition. The road load is measured through the coast down test under less wind ambient conditions as determined by each regulation. The present paper aims to analyze the natural wind conditions encountered by the vehicle on public roads and to operate a comparison between the fuel consumptions and the driving energy. In this paper, the driving energy is calculated by the aerodynamic drag from the natural wind specifications and driving conditions. This driving energy and the fuel consumptions show good correlation. The fuel consumption is obtained from the vehicle Engine control unit(ECU) data.

This report will introduce a new engine sound design concept and propose a design process. In sound design for automotive development of popular vehicles, it is common to seek to enhance the state of the existing marketed vehicle in order to meet further demands from customers. For standout models such as sports vehicles and flagship vehicles, sound design commonly reflects the sound ideals of the manufacturer’s branding or engineers. Each case has common point that the sound direction is determined by itself clearly. However, in this way, it is difficult to create abstract concept sound. Because it is no direction for the sound. Therefore, this paper examines ways to achieve a new sound that satisfies a sound concept based on an unprecedented abstract concept “wood”. The reason why sound concept is “wood”, it is the difficult to make as a new engine sound and good study to reveal usefulness of new sound design process.

The reduction of cycle-to-cycle variations (CCV) is a prerequisite for the development and control of spark-ignition engines with increased efficiency and reduced engine-out emissions. To this end, Large-Eddy Simulations (LES) can improve the understanding of stochastic in-cylinder phenomena during the engine design process, if the employed modeling approach is sufficiently accurate. In this work, an inhouse code has been used to investigate CCV in a direct-injected spark ignition (DISI) engine under fuel-lean conditions with respect to a stoichiometric baseline operating point. It is shown that the crank angle when a characteristic fuel mass fraction is burned, e.g. MFB50, correlates with the equivalence ratio computed as a local average in the vicinity of the spark plug. The lean operating point exhibits significant CCV, which are shown to be correlated also with the in-cylinder subfilter-scale (SFS) kinetic energy.

Recent trends to downsize engines have resulted in lighter weight and greater compactness. At the same time, however, power density has increased due to the addition of turbocharger and other such means to supplement engine power and torque, and this has increased the thermal and mechanical load. In this kind of environment, corrosion of the copper alloy bushing (piston pin bushing) that is press-fitted in the small end of the connecting rod becomes an issue. The material used in automobile bearings, of which the bushing is a typical example, is known to undergo sulfidation corrosion through reaction with an extreme-pressure additive Zinc Dialkyldithiophosphate (ZnDTP) in the lubricating oil. However, that reaction path has not been clarified. The purpose of the present research, therefore, is to clarify the reaction path of ZnDTP and copper in an actual engine environment.

An apparatus that automatically samples lubricating oil and measures the size distribution of particles in the oil has been developed in order to monitor the state of engines and transmissions in operation. It is a widely known fact that when an engine or transmission seizes or experiences unusual wear, comparatively large pieces of wear debris are released. The goal of the use of the apparatus is to detect these particles of wear debris, stop testing before damage occurs, and clarify the causes. Seizure was, therefore, artificially induced in a transmission, and the wear debris in the oil was closely analyzed following the test. The results showed that when the simulated seizure occurred, large, elongated particles of wear debris were produced. Similar wear debris was observed in oil recovered from the market following the seizure of a component, and at present this is believed to be a type of wear debris characteristic of seizure.

The cooling performance and the heat resistance performance of commercial vehicle are balanced with aerodynamic performance, output power of powertrain, styling, cost and many other parameters. Therefore, it is desired to predict the cooling performance and the heat resistance performance with high accuracy at the early stage of development. Among the three basic forms of heat transfer (conduction, convection and radiation), solving thermal conduction accurately is difficult, because modeling of “correct shape” and setting of coefficient of thermal conductivity for each material need many of time and efforts at the early stage of development. Correct shape means that each part should be attached correctly to generate the solid mesh with high quality. Therefore, it is more efficient and realistic method to predict the air temperature distribution around the rubber/resin part instead of using the surface temperature at the preliminary design stage.

The dynamic performance of battery electric vehicles (BEV) is affected by battery output power, which depends on state of charge (SOC) and the temperature of battery cells. The temperature of the batteries varies in particular with the environment, in which the user stores the vehicle, and the battery output power. It is therefore necessary to employ thermal management systems that can control the battery temperature within the optimal range under severely hot and cold conditions in BEVs. A highly sophisticated thermal management system and its operation strategy were developed to fulfill the above requirements. The powertrain components to be thermo-controlled were located into two coolant circuits having different temperature range. The compact and efficient front-end heat exchangers were designed to optimally balance the cooling performance of powertrain, cabin comfort, vehicle aerodynamics and the vehicle design.

We established a technology that can enhance the tumble flow in the cylinder only in a partial load range of the engine without the need to use any intake path switching mechanisms. Firstly, we attempted to understand the basic phenomena of intake flow by using a CFD model, while using a butterfly throttle valve in a straight pipe. By doing this, we were able to observe the reverse flow of intake air that appears after the intake air has passed the throttle valve when the throttle valve opening is 30% or less. This reverse flow is generated mainly in the flow that has passed the trailing edge of the throttle valve. At both sides of the trailing edge opening, the flow is slowed down by diffusing. The flow is then pulled into the low-pressure zone created behind the throttle valve. In addition, a part of the reverse flow merges with the air flowing on the leading-edge side.

In this study, we investigated how to calculate and predict the air temperature distribution around the rider of a stationary motorcycle with the engine at idle. To analyze the air temperature distribution of an idling motorcycle, we needed to accurately predict the mixing of the forced convection air from the radiator fan and the natural convection air caused by the air temperature difference. For the calculation, we used two types of turbulent flow models: realizable k-ε (RKE) and detached eddy simulation (DES). First, in view of the mixing of the radiator exhaust with outside air, we made three-dimensional measurements of the air temperature distribution around the vehicle body to evaluate the accuracy of calculations made by the two models. We then used the models to predict the air temperature distribution around the rider for different air outlet duct configurations as well as for two motorcycles with different displacement values.