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This project was undertaken with an objective to develop methodology by formulating set of procedures that would help in achieving the end goal. Once methodology is established, it paves way to optimize the end results more effectively which results in reduced lead time during product development. Methodology can either be based on pure experimental investigations or by simulations. Combination of mathematical and empirical approach is inherently followed in simulations, which helps in reducing the testing time and overall cost. Commercial vehicles (CV) have seen paradigm shift in the fuel consumption (FC) certification approaches, with an intention to align with 2016 Paris climate agreement. Use of simulation tool like VECTO for commercial vehicle FC certification has gained momentum in Europe. Overall experience gained in commercial vehicle FC simulation has motivated us to leverage the learnings for off-road applications like agricultural tractors.

Hydrogen Internal Combustion Engine (H2ICE) has hydrogen gas storage system and is operated at very low temperature before it enters the combustion chamber. The effect of hydrogen on steel materials is detrimental because of hydrogen embrittlement. Forged steel parts are used in engine specifically valve. The goal of the work is to analyze the outcome of low temperature i.e. 35 °C to -30 °C on three types of forged steel materials i.e. 40Cr4, 42CrMo4 and EN8 and assess any potential changes in their properties due to ductile to brittle transition. Charpy impact test is widely used to determine the temperature at which a material shifts from exhibiting ductile behavior to brittle behavior. This transition is critical for understanding the safety and reliability of steel components, as brittle fracture can lead to catastrophic failures.

The paper talks about Quantification of Alertness for vision based Driver Drowsiness and Alertness Warning System (DDAWS). The quantification of alertness, as per Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS), reads the basic input of facial features & behaviour recognition of driver in a standard manner. Although quantification of alertness is inconclusive with respect to the true value, the paper emphasised on systematic validation process of the system covering various scenarios in order to evaluate the system’s functionality very close to the reality. The methodology depends on definition of threshold values of blink and head pose. The facial features are defined by number of blinks with classification of heavy blink and light blink and head pose in (x, y, z) directions. The Human Machine Interface (HMI) warnings are selected in the form of visual and acoustic signals. Frequency, Amplitude and Illumination of HMI alerts are specified.

Government of India, in 2017, mandated a Side Impact Test (AIS 099 technically aligned to UN ECE Regulation No. 95.03 series of amendments) on M1 category Passenger Vehicles to ensure protection of occupants in lateral impact accident scenarios. Later, in 2022, a draft notification has been issued by the Government mandating installation of 6 airbags (2 Nos of thorax side airbags, 2 Nos of head protection or curtain airbags in addition to already mandated installation of Driver and Passenger Airbags) in all such passenger vehicles. However, the vehicles fitted with side thorax airbag and curtain airbags are proposed to be assessed as per AIS099 test only. Curtain Airbags are typically installed to protect occupant’s head from severe injuries in narrow object impacts simulated in Pole Side Impact Test Configurations. However, at present, India has not notified an equivalent standard to UN R135 demanding performance of the vehicle in pole side impact scenarios.

Following global trends of increasingly stringent greenhouse gas (GHG) and criteria pollutant regulations, India will likely introduce within the next decade equivalent Bharat Stage (BS) regulations for Diesel engines requiring simultaneous reduction in CO2 emissions and up to 90% reduction in NOx emission from current BS-VI levels. Consequently, automakers are likely to face tremendous challenges in meeting such emission reduction requirements while maintaining performance and vehicle total cost of ownership (TCO), especially in the Indian market, which has experienced significant tightening of emission regulation during the past decade. Therefore, it is conceivable that cost effective approaches for improving existing diesel engines platforms for future regulations would be of high strategic importance for automakers.

One of the primary reasons for road accidents is driving while distracted or drowsy. Often, long and monotonous road journeys lead to distracted or drowsy driving. Therefore, there is a need for a system which alerts a distracted or drowsy driver. Moreover, as the levels of autonomy move beyond SAE Level 2, the system assumes a larger share of the dynamic driving task. Under challenging circumstances, the system might ask the driver to take back vehicle control. To guarantee safety, it’s crucial to monitor the driver’s condition in order to assess their readiness to regain control of the vehicle. An advanced safety feature known as a driver monitoring system (DMS), sometimes referred to as a driver state sensing (DSS) system, is designed to monitor a driver’s attentiveness and alertness, providing warnings or alerts to refocus their attention on driving when drowsiness or distraction is detected.

Engine mount is an integral part of any Internal Combustion engine. It is the medium which isolates the vibrations coming from engine being transferred to the chassis or body. Engine or power plant is the main source of unbalanced vibrations. The major role of an engine mount is to reduce those vibration levels, improve ride comfort and increase the life of an engine and its parts [1]. This work determines the Test methodology development for passenger car engine mounts in the Laboratory by using Multi-axial environment [2]. This explains the details of truly Multi-axial test rig development, Drive file creation and the Durability Testing with the maintained vehicle conditions by simulating field conditions in the laboratory. The Multi-axial test rig developed with incorporation of vehicle’s both Front Drive shafts torques and One Propeller shaft which simulates the Front wheel drives and the rear prop shaft torque.

The Construction & Mining field is continuously upgrading, reshaping under the stimulus of technical enhancement. India is considered one of fastest growing country in the word. Requirement for Construction Equipment Vehicles in India is continuously growing due increased rate infrastructure development. To promote development of the Construction Equipment Vehicles (CEV’s) manufacturing sector it was also necessary to build a new governance architecture. Every vehicle plying on road has to comply with Central Motor Vehicle Regulatory requirements as per CMVR act 1989. Earlier 2021 CEV’s were required to go through performance trials like brake, steering effort, turning circle measurement, speedometer calibration as dynamic tests as per regulations.

With the recent development in virtual modelling and vehicle simulation technology, many OEM’s worldwide are using digital road profiles in virtual environment for vehicle durability load prediction and virtual design evaluation. For precise simulation results, it is important to have the tire digital twin which is the realistic representation of tire in the virtual environment. The study comprises of discussion about different types of tire models such as empirical, solid model, rigid ring model and flexural ring models such as Pacejka, MF Swift, CD tire, F tire etc. and also the complexity involved in development of these tire models. Generation of virtual tire model requires highly sophisticated test rigs as well as vehicle level testing with Wheel Force transducers and other vehicle dynamics sensors. The large number of data points generated with testing are converted in standard TYDEX format to be further processed in various software tool for virtual model generation.

The Indian market for battery-powered electric vehicles (xEV) is growing exponentially in the coming years, fueled by tumbling lithium-ion battery prices and favorable government policies. Lithium-ion battery is leading in clean mobility ecosystem for electric vehicles. LiBs efficient and safe performance for tropical climatic conditions is one of the primary requirements for xEV to succeed in India. The performance of LiBs, however, is impacted due to ambient temperature as well as the heat generated within cell due to the load cycle electrochemical reaction. The acceptable operating temperature region for LiBs normally is between 20 °C to 45 °C and anything outside of this region will lead to degradation of performance and irreversible damages. Therefore, understanding the thermal behavior is very crucial for an efficient battery thermal management.

Energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) analysis have made it possible to conduct elemental analysis on a variety of fields, including those with environmental, automotive, geological, chemical, pharmaceutical, archaeology, and biological origins. The ability of EDXRF to deliver quick, non-destructive, and multi-elemental analytical findings with increased sensitivity is of great importance. It is a vital tool for quality control and quality assurance applications. Thus, EDXRF plays an important role to compare batch-to-batch products for meeting quality standards. This paper presents application of EDXRF as an effective tool for quick qualitative and quantitative evaluation of given samples.

Automotive electronics is increasingly playing a vital role in all vehicle subsystems. Since an electronic control system needs to be interfaced with the outside world, an electronic smart switch forms a key output interface with various loads such as solenoids, lamps, motors, relays, fans etc. Although integrated circuit based smart-switch semiconductor solutions are provided by all global semiconductor vendors, they prove more often than not to be overdesigned for majority of situations relevant to low end vehicles. They are also generously loaded with standard high-end features like thermal and overload protection which may not always be required. In addition, external transient protection and on-chip diagnostic features lend further complexity to the entire solution.

Ride is considered to be one of the crucial criterion for evaluating the performance of a vehicle. Automobile industry is striving for improvement in designs to provide superior passenger comfort in Commercial vehicles segment. In Industry, Quarter-car model has been used for years to study the vehicle’s ride dynamics. But due to lower DOF involved in quarter car, the output accuracy is somewhat compromised. This paper aims in development of a 7 DOF full-car Model to perform the ride- comfort analysis for Light Duty 4*2 Commercial Bus using MATLAB Simulink which can be used to tune the suspension design to meet the required ride-comfort criteria. Firstly, experimental data and Physical Parameters are collected by performing Practical Test on commercial Bus on different road profiles. Secondly, a Full Car Mathematical Model with 7 DOF has been developed for a bus using MATLAB Simulink R2018a.

Last decade has been era of environmental awareness. Various programs have launched for making devices and appliances eco-friendly. This initiative has lead automobile industry toward hybridization and now total electrification of vehicles. As electric motor is being added to automobile as a prime mover, due to high frequency vibrations along with higher torque electric motor needs to be isolated properly & carefully as this vibration can damage other automobile parts. Dynamic response of electric motor is different from response of IC engines, so use of engine mounting design method may not be suitable for designing mounting system for electric motor. First, both 4- point and 3- point mounting system are considered for analytical and experimental investigation of force and displacement transmissibility. Position and orientation of elastomeric mounts plays important role in design of mounting system for electric motor.

To enhance the crashworthiness of electric vehicles, designing the optimized and safer battery pack is very essential. The deformed battery cell can result in catastrophic events like thermal runaway and thus it becomes crucial to study the mechanical response of battery cell. The goal of the research is to experimentally investigate the effect of mechanical deformation on Lithium-ion battery cell. The paper thoroughly studies the phenomenon of short circuiting at the time of failure. Various experiments are carried on 18650 cylindrical cells (NCA chemistry) under custom designed fume hood. The setup captures the failure modes of battery cell. The loading conditions have been designed considering the very possible physical conditions during crash event. The study has been done for radial compression, semicircular indentation, hemispherical indentation, flat circular indentation and case of three-point bending.

NVH has gained importance in the field of earth moving equipment due to the demand of quieter machines and stringent in-cab as well as exterior noise emission norms. Several parts of the world have adopted strict legislation on noise emission by earth moving equipment, but many countries have not adopted any regulations till date. The aim of this study is to help governing bodies as well as machine manufacturers in adopting simple yet accurate testing method for compactor machine. The study consists of directivity analysis, noise source identification, noise source ranking and 4-point microphone position sound power evaluation method applied to compactors with wide range of engine power ratings. All the tests in 4-point method and directivity analysis were performed under stationary as well as dynamic conditions.

The Electric Vehicles (EV) or Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) has a bunch of electrical/electronic components and its operation give rise to complicated EMI/EMC issues. The Power Electronics Module (PEM), comprising of DC-DC convertor/invertor and Battery Management Unit (BMU), is driving the motor to propel the vehicle. “Battery Pack Module” powers these units through cables. The fast switching of these circuit elements present in the system leads to noise propagation through the cables. These noise signals give rise to various Electromagnetic (EM) related issues in the cable harness of vehicle. It is essential that these cables should not interfere with other electronic components and also does not get effected by external EM disturbances.

In order to travel in a chaotic and dynamic environment, an autonomous vehicle requires a motion plan. This motion plan ensures collision free, optimum travel without violating any traffic rules. The optimum solution for path planning problem exists in higher dimensions, however, with the help of useful heuristics the problem can be solved in real time, which is required for real time operation of an autonomous vehicle. There are different well established techniques available to plan a collision free kinematically traversable path. One of such techniques is called conformal Lattice planner. However, the legacy version of conformal lattice planner is not optimized and also is prone to fail under specific dynamic environment conditions. Moreover, the legacy version of conformal lattice planner is also not road aware. Due to this reason it is a semi optimized way to solve the motion planning problem.

The automotive and related industries are concentrating their efforts on improving comfort by lowering engine, wind, and road noise and vibrations. However, as background noise levels decrease, the squeaks and rattles (S&R) generated by the vehicle's many components become more noticeable and distracting. As a result of the absence of a dominant noise source from a traditional petrol/diesel car, (S&R) noise becomes more dominant than other types of noise in electric vehicles. In this paper, we propose a novel simulation technique for developing a systematic approach to identifying and solving (S&R) problems in vehicle components/sub-assemblies during the primary stage of product development cycle, thus reducing the overall product development time. This paper will present a novel approach to comprehending various methods and Design of Experiments (DOE) techniques used to determine the root cause of (S&R) problems and to solve those using numerical methods.

Bharat Stage VI (BS VI) emission norms are already introduced in India from 1st April 2020. The implementation of BS VI emission standards essentially brings Indian motor vehicle regulations on par with most stringent International standards. The BS VI regulation also mandated Real Driving Emission (RDE) measurement with objective to limit regulated pollutants esp. NOX & PN during real use of vehicle. For M1 passenger vehicles Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions measured in Lab is also regulated under CAFÉ (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) however, CO2 emission during Real on Road Driving is not regulated. So, this study was carried out to compare CO2 on real road traffic conditions with standard lab conditions. This study was done on a set of BS VI compliant vehicles with diverse characteristic such as engine capacity, fuel type.