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Fracture characterization of automotive metals under simple shear deformation is critical for the calibration of advanced fracture models employed in forming and crash simulations. In-plane shear fracture tests of high ductility materials have proved challenging since the sample edge fails first in uniaxial tension before the fracture limit in shear is reached at the center of the gage region. Although through-thickness machining is undesirable, it appears required to promote higher strains within the shear zone. The present study seeks to adapt existing in-plane shear geometries, which have otherwise been successful for many automotive materials, to have a local shear zone with a reduced thickness. It is demonstrated that a novel shear zone with a pocket resembling a “peanut” can promote shear fracture within the shear zone while reducing the risk for edge fracture. An emphasis was placed upon machinability and surface quality for the design of the pocket in the shear zone.

Driving Automation Systems (DAS) are subject to complex road environments and vehicle behaviors and increasingly rely on sophisticated sensors and Artificial Intelligence (AI). These properties give rise to unique safety faults stemming from specification insufficiencies and technological performance limitations, where sensors and AI introduce errors that vary in magnitude and temporal patterns, posing potential safety risks. The Safety of the Intended Functionality (SOTIF) standard emerges as a promising framework for addressing these concerns, focusing on scenario-based analysis to identify hazardous behaviors and their causes. Although the current standard provides a basic cause-and-effect model and high-level process guidance, it lacks concepts required to identify and evaluate hazardous errors, especially within the context of AI. This paper introduces two key contributions to bridge this gap.

The Self-Piercing Rivet (SPR) is an effective method for joining aluminum sheets and dissimilar materials. The durability assessment of SPR joints is essential for the optimum design of the automotive body-in-white structure. Fatigue analysis is required for any structural system subject to cyclic loading where durability assessment is required. While there is no established fatigue life prediction model for SPR joints, Rupp’s model is a well-established fatigue life prediction method intended for resistance spot welds. Rupp’s model has been the automotive industry’s choice for fatigue life estimation due to its computational efficiency and ability to capture various loading conditions. The purpose of this study is to investigate the compatibility of Rupp’s model with SPR joints. Load-control fatigue testing was conducted on cross-tension SPR joints of aluminum sheets (Al 6016) with dissimilar thicknesses and SPR joints of dissimilar materials (Al 6016 to DX54D steel).

Electrical steels are silicon alloyed steels that possess great magnetic properties, making them the ideal material choice for the stator and rotor cores of electric motors. They are typically comprised of laminated stacks of thin electrical steel sheets. An electric motor can reach high temperatures under a heavy load, and it is important to understand the combined effect of temperature and load on the electrical steel’s performance to ensure the long life and safety of electric vehicles. This study investigated the fatigue strength and failure behavior of a 0.27mm thick electrical steel sheet, where the samples were prepared by a stamping process. Stress-control fatigue tests were performed at both room temperature and 150°C. The S-N curve indicated a decrease in the fatigue strength of the samples at the elevated temperature compared to the room temperature by 15-25 MPa in the LCF and HCF regimes, respectively.

Today, commercially available drones have limited use-cases in the rapidly evolving community. However, with advances in drone and software technology, it is possible to utilize these aerial machines to solve problems in a variety of industries such as mining, medical, construction, and law enforcement. For example, in order to reduce time of investigation, Indiana State Police are currently utilizing ad-hoc commercial drones to reconstruct crash scenes for insurance and legal purposes. In this paper, we illustrate how to effectively integrate drones for in-vehicle services and real-time prediction for automotive applications. In order to accomplish this, we first integrate simpler controls such as voice-commands to control the drone from the vehicle. Next, we build smart prediction software that monitors vehicle behavior and reacts in real-time to collisions.

Vehicle weight reduction through the use of components made of magnesium alloys is an effective way to reduce carbon dioxide emission and improve fuel economy. In the design of these components, which are mostly under cyclic loading, notches are inevitably present. In this study, surface strain distribution and crack initiation sites in the notch region of AZ31B-H24 magnesium alloy notched specimens under uniaxial load are measured via digital image correlation. Predicted strains from finite element analysis using Abaqus and LS-DYNA material types 124 and 233 are then compared against the experimental measurements during quasi-static and cyclic loading. It is concluded that MAT_233, when calibrated using cyclic tensile and compressive stress-strain curves, is capable of predicting strain at the notch root. Finally, employing Smith-Watson-Topper model together with MAT_233 results, fatigue lives of the notched specimens are estimated and compared with experimental results.

A three dimensional IR-TRACC (Infrared Telescope Rod for Assessment of Chest Compression) was designed for the Test Device for Human Occupant Restraint (THOR) in recent years to measure chest deflections. Due to the design intricateness, the deflection calculation from the measurements is sophisticated. An algorithm was developed in this paper to calculate the three dimensional deflections of the chest. The algorithm calculates the compression and also converts the results to the local spine coordinate system so that it can correlate with the Post Mortem Human Subject (PMHS) measurements for injury calculation. The method was also verified by a finite element calculation for accuracy, comparing the calculation from the corresponding model output and the direct point to point measurements. In addition, the IR-TRACC calibration methods are discussed in this paper.

In vehicles equipped with conventional Electric Power Steering (EPS) systems, the steering effort felt by the driver can be unreasonably low when driving on slippery roads. This may lead inexperienced drivers to steer more than what is required in a turn and risk losing control of the vehicle. Thus, it is sensible for tire-road friction to be accounted for in the design of future EPS systems. This paper describes the design of an auxiliary EPS controller that manipulates torque delivery of current EPS systems by supplying its motor with a compensation current controlled by a fuzzy logic algorithm that considers tire-road friction among other factors. Moreover, a steering system model, a nonlinear vehicle dynamics model and a Dugoff tire model are developed in MATLAB/Simulink. Physical testing is conducted to validate the virtual model and confirm that steering torque decreases considerably on low friction roads.

A compact sized vehicle that has a narrow track could solve problems caused by vehicle congestion and limited parking spaces in a mega city. Having a smaller footprint reduces the vehicle's total weight which would decrease overall vehicle power consumption. Also a smaller and narrower vehicle could travel easily through tight and congested roads that would speed up the traffic flow and hence decrease the overall traffic volume in urban areas. As an additional benefit of having a narrow track length, a driver can experience similar motorcycle riding experience without worrying about bad weather conditions since a driver sits in a weather protected cabin. However, reducing the vehicle's track causes instability in vehicle dynamics, which leads to higher possibility of rollovers if the vehicle is not controlled properly. A three wheel personal vehicle with an active tilting system is designed in MapleSim.

This paper presents the numerical validation of the impact response of a hot formed B-pillar component with tailored properties. A laboratory-scale B-pillar tool is considered with integral heating and cooling sections in an effort to locally control the cooling rate of an austenitized blank, thereby producing a part with tailored microstructures to potentially improve the impact response of these components. An instrumented falling-weight drop tower was used to impact the lab-scale B-pillars in a modified 3-point bend configuration to assess the difference between a component in the fully hardened (martensitic) state and a component with a tailored region (consisting of bainite and ferrite). Numerical models were developed using LS-DYNA to simulate the forming and thermal history of the part to estimate the final thickness and strain distributions as well as the predicted microstructures.

A series plug-in hybrid electric powertrain with all-wheel drive is designed using real-world drive cycles as part of the EcoCAR 2 competition. A stock 2013 Chevrolet Malibu Eco is being re-engineered to reduce fuel consumption and emissions while improving consumer acceptability. Waterloo utilizes a 18.9 kWh A123 energy storage system (ESS), which powers two 105 kW TM4 traction motors. A 2.4 L LE9 General Motors coupled to a 105 kW TM4 motor provides range extending performance. Each step of the design process is discussed, including a novel approach to powertrain selection and controls requirement selection that uses real-world drive cycles. The mechanical integration and unique ESS design is also discussed.

An electric vehicle model has been developed with four direct-drive in-wheel motors. A high-level vehicle stability controller is proposed, which uses the principles of fuzzy logic to determine the corrective yaw moment required to minimize the vehicle sideslip and yaw rate errors. A genetic algorithm has been used to optimize the parameters of the fuzzy controller. The performance of the controller is evaluated as the vehicle is driven through a double-lane-change maneuver. Preliminary results indicate that the proposed control system has the ability to improve the performance of the vehicle considerably.

Vehicles designed for the Baja SAE competition operate on challenging off-road terrain and may be required to withstand accidental impacts with other vehicles and obstacles. Although significant injuries are not commonly observed in this competition, it is important to understand the performance of these vehicles in crash scenarios to optimize frame design and vehicle performance. A finite element model comprising the vehicle chassis and associated subsystem weights, a Hybrid III occupant, and safety systems was developed to evaluate vehicle impact performance in frontal crash. Impacts velocities up to 36 kph were considered, and no significant risk of head, neck or thoracic injury was predicted. Neck injury (as predicted by Nij) and chest acceleration were found to be the most critical, reaching 66% and 75% of their threshold values, respectively, in the most severe crashes considered.

In this study, a finite element software application (SORPAS®) is used to simulate the effect of pulsing on the expected weld thermal cycle during resistance spot welding (RSW). The predicted local cooling rates are used in combination with experimental observation to study the effect pulsing has on the microstructure and mechanical properties of Zn-coated DP600 AHSS (1.2mm thick) spot welds. Experimental observation of the weld microstructure was obtained by metallographic procedures and mechanical properties were determined by tensile shear testing. Microstructural changes in the weld metal and heat affect zone (HAZ) were characterized with respect to process parameters.

In this study, application of differential braking strategy to remove the oscillatory instability or snaking behavior of an articulated steer vehicle is presented. First, a linearized model of the vehicle is described that is used to represent the equations of motion in the state-space form. Then, this model is utilized for designing a sliding mode controller to adjust the differential braking on the rear axle to stabilize the vehicle during the snaking. The performance of the resulting active control system is evaluated in different driving conditions by using the linearized model. Finally, the control system is incorporated into a virtual prototype of the vehicle in ADAMS, and its operation is examined. The results from the linear model analysis and simulations in ADAMS are reasonably consistent.

The objective of this paper is to help students optimize project component selection or design by detailing, through two specific examples, the University of Waterloo's Alternative Fuels Team's (UWAFT's) successful design process. UWAFT successfully designed a fuel cell powered vehicle for the ChallengeX student engineering competition. The use of a formal, structured design process enabled this team to achieve great confidence in both the feasibility of their design and their ability to manifest the design. This design process is model-based whereby a parameterized software model is created. This paper hopefully assists students to overcome a common reluctance to implementing a model-based design process. After a component is constructed and tested, students can update their software model, which can help them assess the strength of their design.

This paper proposes a vehicle performance/safety method using combined active steering and differential braking to achieve yaw stability and rollover avoidance. The advantages and disadvantages of active steering and differential braking control methods are identified under a variety of input signals, such as J-turn, sinusoidal, and fishhook inputs by using the implemented linear 4 DOF model. Also, the nonlinear model of the vehicle is evaluated and verified through individual and integrated controller. Each controller gives the correction steering angle and correction moment to the simplified steering and braking actuators. The integrated active steering and differential braking control are shown to be most efficient in achieving yaw stability and rollover avoidance, while active steering and differential braking control has been shown to improve the vehicle performance and safety only in yaw stability and rollover avoidance, respectively.

A fuel cell-battery hybrid powertrain SUV vehicle is designed using an optimized model-based design process. Powertrain and fuel storage components selected include a 65 kW Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) power module, two 67 kW electric traction motors, a 35 MPa compressed hydrogen storage tank, a 70 kW nickel metal hydride battery pack, and a University of Waterloo in-house DC/DC converter design. Hardware control uses two controllers, a main supervisory controller and a subsystem controller in addition to any embedded component control modules. Two key innovations of this work include the hybrid control strategy and the DC/DC converter. The final powertrain characteristics are expected to meet a set of Vehicle Technical Specifications (VTS).

Using standard tensile testing methods, the material properties of AKDQ and DP600 steels tubes along the axial direction were determined. A novel in-situ optical strain mapping system ARAMIS® was utilized to evaluate the strain distribution during tensile testing along the axial direction. Microstructural and damage characterization was carried out using microscopy and image analysis techniques to compare the damage evolution and formability of both materials. Failure in both steels was observed to occur via a ductile failure mode. AKDQ was found to be the more formable material as it can achieve higher strains, total elongations and thinning prior to failure than the higher strength DP600.

Many design problems are discovered often late in the development process, when design flexibility is limited. It is the art of the refinement engineers to find a solution to any unpredicted issues at this stage. The refinement process contains many hours of testing and requires many prototypes. Having an accurate experimental model of the system in this phase could reduce refinement time significantly. One of the areas that usually require refinement and tuning late in the design process is engine and body mounting systems. In this paper, we introduce a technique to optimize the mounting system of a vehicle for a given objective function using experimental/numerical analysis. To obtain an accurate model of the vehicle, we introduce an experimental procedure based upon the substructuring method. The method eliminates the need for any accurate finite element method of the vehicle. Experimental results of the implementation of this approach to a real vehicle are presented.