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Take notes! Take the wheel! There is no better place to gain an appreciation for vehicle dynamics than from the driver’s seat. Spend three, intense days with a world-renowned vehicle dynamics engineer and SAE Master Instructor, his team of experienced industry engineers, and the BMW-trained professional driving instructors. They will guide you as you work your way through 12 classroom modules learning how and why vehicles go, stop and turn. Each classroom module is immediately followed by an engaging driving exercise on BMW’s private test track.

Increasing urbanisation and the growing environmental awareness in society require new and innovative vehicle concepts. In the present work, the design freedoms of additive manufacturing (AM) are used to develop a front axle wheel suspension for a novel modular vehicle concept. The development of the suspension components is based on a new method using industry standard load cases for the strength design of the components. To design the chassis components, first the available installation space is determined and a suitable configuration of the chassis components is defined. Furthermore, numerical methods are used to identify component geometries that are suitable for the force flow. The optimisation setup is selected in a way that allows to integrate information, energy and material-carrying conductors into the suspension arms. The conductors even serve as load-bearing structures because of the matching design of the components.

Meta material has been known for many years and the physics are well known since decades. But the challenge has always been to put the know how into (mass) production. This was the reason why no meta material has found its way into the automotive industry so far. But now things have changed: meta material became Meta Design and is going into serial production in 2024. Meta Design is a tunable spring mass system with foam acting as the spring and heavy layer as the mass. Meta Design is characterized by cavities in the foam and concentrated masses of the heavy layer as functionalized mass pins. By tuning the size of the cavities and the weight of the mass pins the acoustic performance can be adjusted to the requirements of each individual car line. After preliminary simulations, flat samples were tested in the lab. The next step was launched: the production and testing of a handmade prototype part of a firewall insulation for a Mercedes-Benz A-Class.

Reductions in powertrain noise have led to an increased proportion of road noise, prompting various studies aimed at mitigating it. Road excitation primarily traverses through the vehicle suspension system, necessitating careful optimization of the characteristics of bushings at connection points. However, optimizing at the vehicle assembly stage is both time-consuming and costly. Therefore, it is essential to proceed with optimization at the subsystem level using appropriate objective functions. In this study, the blocked force and energy-based index derived from complex power were used to optimize the NVH performance. Calculating the complex power in each bushing enables computing the power flow, thereby providing a basis for evaluating the NVH performance. Through stiffness injection, the frequency response functions (FRF) of the system can be predicted according to arbitrary changes in the bushing stiffness.

Although structural intensity was introduced in the 80's, this concept never found practical applications, neither for numerical nor experimental approaches. Quickly, it has been pointed out that only the irrotational component of the intensity offers an easy interpretation of the dynamic behavior of structures by visualizing the vibration energy flow. This is especially valuable at mid and high frequency where the structure response understanding can be challenging. A new methodolodgy is proposed in order to extract this irrotational intensity field from the Finite Element Model of assembled structures such as Bodies In White. This methodology is hybrid in the sense that it employs two distinct solvers: a dynamic solver to compute the structural dynamic response and a thermal solver to address a diffusion equation analogous to the thermal conduction built from the previous dynamic response.

Gas bearings are an effective solution to high-speed rotor applications for its contamination free, reduced maintenance and higher reliability. However, low viscosity of gas leads to lower dynamic stiffness and damping characteristics resulting in low load carrying capacity and instability at higher speeds. Gas bearings can be enhanced by adding a foil structure commonly known as gas foil bearings (GFBs), whose dynamic stiffness can be tailored by modifying the geometry and the material properties resulting in better stability and higher load carrying capacity. A detailed study is required to assess the performance of high-speed rotor systems supported on GFBs, therefore in this study a bump type GFB is analyzed for its static and dynamic characteristics. The static characteristics are obtained by solving the non-linear Reynolds equation through an iterative procedure.

By analyzing the dynamic distortion in all body closure openings in a complete vehicle, a better understanding of the body characteristics can be achieved compared to traditional static load cases such as static torsional body stiffness. This is particularly relevant for non-traditional vehicle layouts and electric vehicle architectures. The body response is measured with the so-called Multi Stethoscope (MSS) when driving a vehicle on a rough pavé road (cobble stone). The MSS is measuring the distortion in each opening in two diagonals. During the virtual development, the distortion is described by the relative displacement in diagonal direction in time domain using a modal transient analysis. The results are shown as Opening Distortion Fingerprint ODF and used as assessment criteria within Solidity and Perceived Quality. By applying the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) on the time history of the distortion, a Dominant Distortion Pattern (DDP) can be identified.

The descent phase of GAGANYAAN (Indian Manned Space Mission) culminates with a crew module impacting at a predetermined site in Indian waters. During water impact, huge amount of loads are experienced by the astronauts. This demands an impact attenuation system which can attenuate the impact loads and reduce the acceleration experienced by astronauts to safe levels. Current state of the art impact attenuation systems use honeycomb core, which is passive, expendable, can only be used once (at touchdown impact) during the entire mission and does not account off-nominal impact loads. Active and reusable attenuation systems for crew module is still an unexplored territory. Three configurations of impact attenuators were selected for this study for the current GAGANYAAN crew module configuration, namely, hydraulic damper, hydro-pneumatic damper and airbag systems.

Thermo-mechanical fatigue and natural aging due to environmental conditions are difficult to simulate in an actual test with the advanced fiber-reinforced composites, where their fatigue and aging behavior is little understood. Predictive modeling of these processes is challenging. Thermal cyclic tests take a prohibitively long time, although the strain rate effect can be scaled well for accelerating the mechanical stress cycles. Glass fabric composites have important applications in aircraft and spacecraft structures including microwave transparent structures, impact-resistant parts of wing, fuselage deck and many other load bearing structures. Often additional additively manufactured features and coating on glass fabric composites are employed for thermal and anti-corrosion insulations. In this paper we employ a thermo-mechanical fatigue model based accelerated fatigue test and life prediction under hot to cold cycles.

Abstract: Hydraulic systems in aircrafts largely comprise of metallic components with high strength to weight ratios which comprise of 2024 Aluminum and Titanium Ti-6AL-4V. The selection of material is based on low and high pressure applications respectively. For aircraft fluid conveyance products, hydraulic conduits are fabricated by axisymmetric turning to support flow conditions. The hydraulic conduits further carries groves within for placement of elastomeric sealing components. This article presents a systematic study carried out on common loads experienced by fluid carrying conduits and the failure modes induced. The critical failure locations on fluid carrying conduits of 2024-T351 Aluminum was identified, and the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) analysis was carried out to identify the characteristic footprints of failure surfaces and crack initiation. Through this analysis, a load to failure mode correlation is established.

Aerospace structural components grapple with the pressing issue of high-cycle fatigue-induced micro-crack initiation, especially in high-performance alloys like Titanium and super alloys. These materials find critical use in aero-engine components, facing a challenging combination of thermo-mechanical loads and vibrations that lead to gradual dislocations and plastic strain accumulation around stress-concentrated areas. The consequential vibration or overload instances can trigger minor cracks from these plastic zones, often expanding unpredictably before detection during subsequent inspections, posing substantial risks. Effectively addressing this challenge demands the capability to anticipate the consequences of operational life and aging on these components. It necessitates assessing the likelihood of crack initiation due to observed in-flight vibration or overload events.

The design and development of vehicle suspensions significantly influences vehicle handling and ride comfort. Suspension system design excellence follows the basic laws of physics using design synthesis techniques, a methodical process for suspension geometry development. Suspension geometry is the foundation of vehicle performance from which high-confidence suspension components and tunings can be developed. Suspension component design continues to move toward mass and cost efficient designs with high levels of stiffness being essential to achieving design requirements.

This course will present an introduction to vehicle dynamics from a vehicle system perspective. The theory and applications are associated with the interaction and performance balance between the powertrain, brakes, steering, suspensions and wheel and tire vehicle subsystems.  The role that vehicle dynamics can and should play in effective automotive chassis development and the information and technology flow from vehicle system to subsystem to piece-part is integrated into the presentation. Governing equations of motion are developed and solved for both steady and transient conditions.

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SAE Brake Colloquium remains gathering place for leading industry experts gather share advancements innovations do business around brake systems friction materials

SAE Brake Colloquium remains gathering place for leading industry experts gather share advancements innovations do business around brake systems friction materials

Gather and network with other mobility professionals at the Brake Colloquium & Exhibition