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Battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) require new chassis components, which are realized as mechatronic systems mainly and support more and more by-wire functionality. Besides better controllability, it eases the implementation of integrated control strategies to combine different domains of vehicle dynamics. Especially powertrain layouts based on electric in-wheel machines (IWMs) require such an integrated approach to unfold their full potential. The present study describes an integrated, longitudinal vehicle dynamics control strategy for a battery electric sport utility vehicle (SUV) with an electric rear axle based on in-wheel propulsion. Especially the influence of electronic brake force distribution (EBD) and torque blending control on the overall performance are discussed and demonstrated through experiments and driving cycles on public road and benchmarked to results of previous studies derived from [1].

The following paper aims to bring the topics of connected testing and emission measurements together. It is an introduction of connected bench testing with the aim to characterize brake particle emissions with a special focus on the impact of regenerative braking by simulating the real behavior of a premium BEV SUV. Such an approach combines the advantages of a brake dynamometer including an emission testing setup and a HiL setup to allow a much more precise testing of brake particle emissions under the impact of regen braking compared to the current recommendations of the Global Technical Regulation (GTR) on brake particle emissions. It is shown for the very first time, how interactions between the vehicle motion system work. The study includes one physical front brake corner as well as one physical rear brake corner. The regen functionalities are simulated by a real ESC-ECU which is the core of the HiL test setup.

When designing new vehicles, the legal requirements of the countries in which the vehicles are homologated must be observed and implemented. The manufacturers try to consider the legal framework of the UN-ECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe), CCC (China Compulsory Certification) and FMVSS (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard) 108 in the same vehicle to keep the variance low. For the appearance of the vehicle, the position of the light modules in the front of the vehicle is important. In addition to the surface requirements of lighting functions, the positions of the low beam (LB), high beam (HB) and the position of daytime running lights (DRL) are also regulated. When it comes to these mounting positions, the legislation between the US and the EU differs quite significantly.

In order to correctly predict the impact of tire dimensions and properties on ride comfort in the early phases of the vehicle development process, it is necessary to fully understand their influence on the dynamic tire behavior. The currently existing models for reproducing tire forces often need many measurements for parametrization, simplify physical properties by empiric functions, or have an insufficient simulation speed to analyze many variants in the short periods of early process phases. In the following analysis, a tire concept model is presented, which utilizes relations between the static and dynamic behavior of tires in order to efficiently predict the dynamic forces in the vertical and longitudinal direction during obstacle crossing. The model allows for efficient parametrization by minimizing the number of parameters as well as measurements and ensures a high simulation speed. To realize this, initially, a selection of tires is measured on a tire test rig.

In addition to the low and high beam functions, some modern headlamps also have the option of switching on only section of the high beam. The so-called adaptive high beam is intended to increase the detection distance of objects and through that drastically improve the road safety. At the same time, this function does not increase the glare for oncoming or preceding traffic. This is enabled through switching the different segments of the high beam on or off, depending on which and where other road users are recognized by the front camera. This massively increases the use of the high beam, thus increasing road safety. In this study, the increase in the detection distance of objects on a straight line is statically investigated with a test person study. Furthermore, the glare of each of these three light functions is observed.

The current development of automotive lighting strives towards more and more lighting installations on vehicles. Additionally, to that, manufacturers start animating these lighting installations as coming home or leaving home greetings from the car to the driver. In a previous paper we have shown, that these additional animations are in fact not distracting to other road users and when used correctly, e.g. in a sequential turn indicator, can be beneficial to the overall traffic safety. This study then aims to investigate the potential influence of illuminated logos on road safety. European lawmakers forbid the use of illuminated advertisements on vehicles to minimize the danger of distraction for other road users and thereby negatively influencing traffic safety. As of now, active illumination of the manufacturer’s logo is considered an advertisement.

The deposition behavior of brake wear particles on the surface of a wheel and the mechanisms on it have not been fully understood. In addition, the proportion of brake wear particles deposited on the wheel surface compared to the total emitted particles is almost unknown. This information is necessary to evaluate the number- and mass-related emission factors measured on the inertia dynamometer and to compare them with on-road and vehicle-related emission behaviour. The aim of this study is to clarify the deposition behavior of brake particles on the wheel surface. First, the real deposition behaviour is determined in on-road tests. For particle sampling, collection pads are adapted at different positions of a front and rear axle wheel. In addition to a Real Driving Emissions (RDE)-compliant test cycle, tests are performed in urban, rural and motorway sections to evaluate speed-dependent influences.

1. The present work introduces an approach for the analysis of the noise propagation behavior of mechatronic brake systems in modern passenger vehicles. While on the one hand, the number of features realized through the mechatronic brake system is strongly increasing; on the other hand, a continuous reduction of the overall vehicle interior noise level can be observed. This leads to an increase of interfering noise phenomena in the vehicle interior that customers might perceive as insufficient product quality. Therefore, noise elimination always plays an important role in vehicle development. The mechatronic brake system induces interfering noise that is transferred into the vehicle interior, differing from vehicle to vehicle and maneuver to maneuver. Supposedly, a wide frequency range, numerous components, and various branched transfer paths in the physical domains of airborne, structure-borne, and fluid-borne sound are involved in the noise propagation.

In this paper, the human intra- and interpersonal adjustment accuracy (or aiming) of headlamp cutoff lines with different methods are examined. Intrapersonal aiming accuracy is the repeatability of a single person, while interpersonal aiming accuracy describes the differences between different people. For this purpose, a study is developed, implemented and evaluated. In one experiment, the subjects set up three different headlamps using three different methods according to the ECE regulation. In addition, the three adjustment methods used are compared with each other and evaluated in terms of the variation resulting aim. The most common aiming method, the visual adjustment of the cutoff line, such as the 10-meter wall method or analog headlamp aiming devices shows the highest variations. It is shown that digital headlamp aiming devices generally also have a lower dispersion variance, while still being better than all other adjustment methods.

Two research fields are presented in this paper covering new lighting functions. In the first part, a study is presented that evaluates distraction by light animations. 41 test subjects were involved, and a situation was constructed with several traffic participants and an animated-light vehicle parked so as to be conspicuously within the test subjects’ view. 91% of the test subjects stated they felt little or no distraction or impairment from the light display on the parked car. 29% noticed something conspicuous about the test vehicle. 22% indicated they had noticed the car’s lights flashing as its central locking system was operating. Only 7%—three of the 41 participants—noticed the animations in addition to their traffic monitoring. Of these, two said they didn’t feel disturbed at all by the animations while the third found it only very slightly distracting. Nobody said the distraction or impairment was “neutral”, “little bit” or “strong”.

E-mobility is a game changer for the automotive domain. It promises significant reduction in terms of complexity and in terms of local emissions. With falling prices and recent technological advances, the second generation of electric vehicles (EVs) that is now in production makes electromobility an affordable and viable option for more and more transport mission (people, freight). Current e-vehicle platforms still present architectural similarities with respect to combustion engine vehicle (e.g., centralized motor). Target of the European project EVC1000 is to introduce corner solutions with in-wheel motors supported by electrified chassis components (brake-by-wire, active suspension) and advanced control strategies for full potential exploitation. Especially, it is expected that this solution will provide more architectural freedom toward “design-for-purpose” vehicles built for dedicated usage models, further providing higher performances.

Brake particle emissions as a part of non-exhaust emissions are becoming more and more relevant, various international research activities can be stated. Also from the legislation side, first hints are given in regards of possible regulations. One possible approach for the reduction of brake particle emissions deals with the collection of those particles close to the foundation brake. The presented paper will follow such an approach and give some insights. In a first step, the technical layout is described for bench and vehicle testing. While for bench testing a PMP-like style of the setup could be chosen, the vehicle test setup is oriented on conventional wheel dust measurements. Hence, presented results of laboratory testing are dealing with PN and PM measurements. Also the impact on particle size distribution is discussed. It can be stated, that the particle collecting system is able to improve PN and PM emissions. Additionally, ultra-fine particles are almost eliminated.

With battery electric vehicles (BEV), due to the absence of the combustion process, the rolling noise comes even more into play. The BEV technology also leads to different concepts of how to mount the electric engine in the car. Commonly, also applied with the Audi e-tron, the rear engine is mounted on a subframe, which again is connected to the body structure. This concept leads to a better insulation in the high frequency range, yet it bears some problems in designing the mounts for ride comfort (up to 20Hz) or body boom (up to 70Hz). Commonly engine mounts are laid-out based on driving dynamics and driving comfort (up to 20Hz). The current paper presents a new method to find an optimal mount design (concerning the stiffness) in order to reduce the dynamic chassis forces which are transferred to the body (>20Hz). This directly comes along with a reduction of the sound pressure level for the ‘body boom’ phenomena.

The statistical energy analysis (SEA) is widely used to support the development of the sound package of cars. This paper will present the preparation of a model designed to investigate the sound package of the new Audi A3 and associated correlation against measurements. Special care was given during the creation of the model on the representation of the structure to enable the analysis of structure borne energy flow on top of the classical airborne analysis usually done with SEA. The sound package was also detailed in the model to allow further optimization and analysis of its performance. Two real life load cases will be presented to validate the model with measurements. First, the dominating powertrain and a second load case with dominating rolling noise. An analysis of the contribution of the different source components and a way to diagnose the weak paths of the vehicle will be presented. The focus of this investigation is the application of optimally adjusted treatment.

The paper will describe actual investigations on safety improvements by new lighting functions. Especially the new chance of projections on the road surface either by simple reflector technology or by modern signature and pattern projection will be investigated. Different prototype patterns will be checked by a set of new parameters, e.g. reaction time to signals, clear understanding, minimum and optimum visual contrasts. The results show that high contrasts and dynamic effects are most effective.

Wheels on passenger vehicles cause about 25% of the aerodynamic drag. The interference of rims and tires in combination with the rotation result in strongly turbulent wake regions with complex flow phenomena. These wake structures interact with the flow around the vehicle. To understand the wake structures of wheels and their impact on the aerodynamic drag of the vehicle, the complexity was reduced by investigating a standalone tire in the wind tunnel. The wake region behind the wheel is investigated via Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). The average flow field behind the investigated wheels is captured with this method and offers insight into the flow field. The investigation of the wake region allows for the connection of changes in the flow field to the change of tires and rims. Due to increased calculation performance, sophisticated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations can capture detailed geometries like the tire tread and the movement of the rim.

Good lighting is crucial for safe driving at night. Unfortunately, many parameters are contributing to the final result of the individual tolerances of car body, dynamics and headlamp: the resulting aim. The paper will analyze individual tolerance contributors from car body parameters like load, tire pressure, suspension as well as temperature parameters of chassis and plastic parts. The investigation shows that the headlight aim can fluctuate in a worst case scenario more than ±0.3°.

The electrification of the powertrain and the thereto related recuperation of the electric engine saves the energy in the battery and thus reduces the thermally dissipated brake energy, which leads to lower brake rotor temperatures compared to combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). These new conditions enable to reconsider brake disc concepts. Including lightweight design in heavy battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and the increasingly reliant corrosion resistance of brake rotors, Aluminum is a promising approach for new brake disc concepts. In the past, Aluminum brake disc concepts have already been deployed. For instance Aluminum Metal-Matrix Composite (Al-MMC) concepts in the Lotus Elise S1 and on the rear axle of the Volvo V40 [1]. The presented concept is a different approach and separates the friction system from the bulk Aluminum brake disc, achieved by coating of the friction rings.

Non-exhaust emissions in general and brake particle emissions in particular have become very relevant during the last years. Even if many investigations and efforts are under progress, no common test standards exist so far. Many mechanisms and possible impacts are not fully understood either. Hence, the authors continued their investigations by using an already refined and proved test setup, which is the base for further characterizations and enhancements. The presented studies include the characterization of three different friction couples (using the same brake system) for two different test cycles (namely a modified AK Master and a WLTP) in terms of particle number concentration. Additionally, the major differences of the modified AK Master and the WLTP are investigated and analyzed. Finally, results of particle mass characterizations introduced. A brief summary and some conclusions are presented in the final chapter.

The engine development process has been enhanced significantly by virtual engineering methods during the last decades. In terms of in-cylinder flow field, charge flow and combustion modelling, 3D-CFD (three dimensional) simulations enable detailed analysis and extended investigations in order to gain additional knowledge about design parameters. However, the computational time of the 3D-CFD is an obvious drawback that prevents a reasonable application for extensive analysis with varying speed, load and transient conditions. State-of-the-art 0D (zero dimensional) approaches close the gap between the demand of high computational efficiency and a satisfying accordance with experimental data. Recent improvements of phenomenological combustion approaches for gasoline spark ignition engines deal with the consideration of detailed flow parameters, the accuracy of the laminar flame speed calculation and the prediction of the knock limit.