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The Light commercial vehicle (LCV) is primarily used for the last mile delivery and it hold the volume share of around 61% in the commercial vehicle segment. The last mile delivery services have seen a massive surge after the CoVID 19 pandemic resulting is the increase sale of LCV in last few years and is expected to grow further by 8-11% in the coming years. However, city logistic is also responsible for most pollution and noise in the city. Hence, policymakers are aiming to reduce carbon footprint by promoting the use of Electric vehicle by providing incentive to automakers though schemes like FAME I and FAME II. In order to effectively reduce the carbon footprint within city it is important to increase the use of new electric vehicle and convert the old polluting vehicles to electric. Hence, a retro fitment solution for converting used LCV to electric can help in reducing emission as well as noise pollution. Later the same solution can be offered as OE fitment solution.

Researchers are under pressure to investigate and discover ways to improve the efficacy and reduce emissions from ICE due to the depletion of energy resources and the growing concern over global warming. Hydrogen is viewed as a promising fuel and has been investigated as a potential fuel in combustion because to several desirable qualities like carbon-less content and strong flammability limitations. When equated to other alternative fuels like LPG, CNG, LNG, etc., hydrogen has inimitable qualities because it lacks carbon, making it one of the promising alternatives fuels. In order to achieve zero CO2 emissions for traffic applications in the near future, hydrogen being an automotive fuel in ICE is a solution. The ICE powered by hydrogen is prepared for that. The actual drawbacks of using hydrogen in ICE generally are manufacturing, storage, and development of the requisite infrastructure. Hydrogen can be produced in its many forms.

Battery is one of the safety critical systems in EV. As the number of EVs increases, battery safety becomes an important task to avoid any mishap during its use, as even small accidents may slow down the adaptation of EVs. Automotive environment being one of the harshest operating environments, it is important to ensure both mechanical and electrical safety of the battery pack. Li-Ion batteries are most popular among traction batteries, due to their high energy density, long life, and fast charging capabilities. But mechanical damage, over temperature, short-circuit, etc. may lead to battery thermal runaway, causing a major accident. Mechanical abuse of battery can be one of the reasons that may lead to the damages mentioned above, eventually causing thermal runaway in batteries. That’s why all major battery safety standards have requirements for vibration and mechanical shock tests.

A bus is integral part of public transportation in both rural and urban areas. It is also used for scheduled transport, tourism, and school transport. Buses are the common mode of transport all over the world. The growth in economy, the electrification of public transport, demand in shared transport, etc., is leading to a surge in the demand for buses and accelerating the overall growth of the bus industry. With the increased number of buses, the issue of safety of passengers and the crew assumes special importance. The comfort of driver and passenger in the vehicle involves the vibration performance and therefore, the structural integrity of buses is critically important. Bus safety act depicts the safety and comfort of bus operations, management of safety risks, continuous improvement in bus safety management, public confidence in the safety of bus transport, appropriate stakeholder involvement and the existence of a safety culture among bus service providers.

The Indian automotive industry is striving towards more safe and durable vehicles. A need was felt to study the effect of changes in axle static loads on fatigue life of the axle components. Also, there was a need to develop generic test method, as there are no test standards or generic methods available in public domain for fatigue testing of commercial vehicle axles. The study was carried out to check direct effect of change in axle loads on various connections on axle, effect of suspension configuration and force distribution, Vehicle dynamics, etc. In this paper, an India specific generic load spectra was evaluated for accelerated laboratory validation. Paper discusses the methodology as; study of heavy commercial vehicle systems, road load data collection on identified test vehicles w.r.t. test matrix finalized, India specific test loads and load spectra development, normalization of axle load spectra w.r.t to static axle weights and arriving at test guidelines.

Wheel rims and wheel hub bearings are critical components of Heavy Commercial Vehicle (HCV) suspension systems and are subjected to extensive fatigue loading throughout their operational life. Actual loading conditions on wheels are a combination of radial loads (vertical loads) and cornering loads (lateral loads) acting simultaneously and are directly influenced by payload and road conditions. Currently for Indian usage, there are test guidelines [1] only for separate uniaxial Radial Fatigue Test (RFT) and Cornering Fatigue Test (CFT) for wheel rims which might not represent realistic combined loading conditions, and no generic guidelines are available for testing of wheel hub bearings.

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.

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.

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.

Electric Vehicles (EVs), with its inherent advantage of zero tailpipe emissions, are gaining importance because of aggressive push from government not only to reduce air pollution but also to reduce dependency of fossil fuel. EVs and necessary charging infrastructure along with ‘connected’ technology is redefining mobility. Considering the fast growing EV market, it becomes important for an EV Powertrain Architect to design and develop a powertrain solution having low engineering efforts and satisfying business, market and regulatory requirements at a competitive price. This paper presents a compact, flexible, convenient and smart featured simulation tool for an EV Powertrain Architect for estimating the specifications of key powertrain components such as traction battery and electric motor. The proposed tool takes into consideration the end-user as well as the regulatory requirements of range, maximum speed, acceleration and gradeability.

Recently, Hybrid electric vehicles have become significant. Electric vehicle is still in its infancy while grappling with multiple solutions to its problem of range anxiety and heavy weight. It makes HEV the viable and intermediate solution which can facilitate the transition. The battery behaviour is grossly defined by its dependence on variation due to temperature change. Hence, this present work focuses on understanding thermal characterization & pure behaviour of the Li-Ion Phosphate (LiFePO4) P1-HEV battery using the HPPC test. This becomes imperative because of the varying driver demands and ambient temperatures over the use during the day. Thus, the current drawn from battery varies (different C rate) leading to heat generation (I2R heating) within the pack/individual cell. Cyclically, impacting the cell performance and battery cycle life.

Any change is vehicle exterior design, affects the aerodynamics characteristic. Generally different types of roof racks are attached on passenger vehicles to carry luggage which affects aerodynamic drag. The objective of this work is to perform aerodynamic analysis of ground vehicle with roof rack to investigate the change in drag coefficient. First, the aerodynamic analysis of a baseline passenger car model is performed with and without generic benchmarked roof rack at 100 kmph. Further analysis is carried out with different new designs of roof racks. Based on simulation result, a scaled down prototype model is fabricated and validated by using a wind tunnel test for optimum suitable case. The modelling of the vehicle is done in CATIA tool and simulation is carried out by using ANSYS Fluent.

The technology development in automobiles is progressing towards providing smarter vehicles with increased efficiency and reduced emission. To cater this need, Electric Vehicles (EV) and Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV) are slowly thriving in Indian roads. Conversion of existing IC engine powered vehicle to HEV reduces complication in new vehicle development and also results in vehicles with increased efficiency and reduced emission. In order to convert the Conventional Vehicle to Hybrid Electric Vehicle, drive from electric motor was coupled with existing driveline by modifying mechanical systems suitably. Hybrid vehicle includes systems such as electric motors, inverters, high-voltage batteries and electronic control units, which are mounted in chassis members. Being a major load carrying member, any modifications in chassis system may affect the performance of vehicle, therefore it is necessary to evaluate the modified design of chassis members.

Active control mainly comprises of three parts; sensor-detects the input disturbance, actuator -provide counter measures and control logic -processing of input disturbances and converting it into logical output. Lot of methods for active vibration control are available but this paper deals with active control of steering wheel vibrations of an LCV. A steering wheel is, one such component that directly transfers vibration to the driver. Active technique described here is implemented using accelerometer sensor, IMA (Inertial Mass Actuator) and feed forward Fx-LMS (Filtered reference Least Mean Square) control algorithm. IMA is a single-degree-of-freedom oscillator. To enable a control, IMA needs to be coupled to the structure at a single point, acting as an add-on to the passive system. Fx-LMS is a type of adaptive algorithm which is computationally simple and it also includes compensation for secondary path effects by using an estimate of the secondary path.

The use of Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV) will become imperative to meet the emission challenges. HEV have two power sources-fossil fuels driven I.C. Engine and the battery based drive. Battery technologies have seen a tremendous development, and therefore HEV’s have been benefited. Even as the battery capacities have improved, maintaining and monitoring their health has been a challenge. This research paper uses open-source platform to build a BMS. The flexibility in the implementation of the system has helped in the rapid prototyping of the system. The BMS system was evaluated on a scaled-down electric toy car for its performance and sustainability. The BMS was evaluated for reverse polarity, protection against overcharge, short-circuit, deep discharge and overload on lead acid battery. It also includes temperature monitoring of the batteries. This proposed system is evaluated on the in-house HEV two-wheeler. The initial results are promising.

Sound Quality (SQ) of brake and clutch pedal assembly plays an important role in contributing to vehicle interior noise and perception of sound. Quiet operation of brake and clutch units also reflects the vehicle built and material quality. Noise emitted from these sub-assemblies has to meet certain acceptance criteria as per different OEM requirements. Not much work has been carried on this over the years to characterize and quantify the same. An attempt has been made in this paper to study the sound quality of brake and clutch pedal assemblies at component level and validate the same by identifying the parameters affecting SQ. Effect on noise at different environmental conditions was studied with typical operating cycles in a hemi-anechoic chamber. The effect of sensor switches integrated within the clutch and brake pedal on sound quality is analyzed. It is found that the operating characteristics of switches drives the noise and SQ.

The function of the automotive transmission is to reliably transmit torque and motion between engine and wheels at acceptable levels of noise, vibration and desired life. Gear drive components most commonly subject to distress are the gears, shafts, bearings and seals. The variables in the entire power-system, such as vibration, misalignment, type of lubricant used, material properties, operating temperature and abuse are considered as the main root causes for the gear failures. The bending and contact strength of the gear tooth are considered to be one of the main contributors for the failure of the gear in a gear set. Thus, Heartzian stress analysis has become popular as an area of research on gears to minimize or to reduce the failures of gears. In this research work, one of the major field issues related to 1st gear and reverse gear pitting at very low life for 6 speed manual transmission for mining/ quarry application is studied.

The design and development of complete vehicle, understanding of chassis system development process is an important task. Chassis frame of a vehicle is supporting member, both structurally and functionally, to all other chassis aggregate systems viz. suspension, steering, braking system etc. In this paper, a methodology for chassis frame model construction and validation is explained. In present work, chassis frame model is validated in terms of modal parameters and also against static loading conditions. Existing chassis 3D Computer Aided Design (CAD) data was generated using scanning and cloud point data conversion technique. FE model was generated and validated through experimental measurements viz. modal testing, vertical bending, lateral bending, and torsional bending test. Loading and boundary conditions were replicated on the complete FE model in CAE domain and test validation was carried out using appropriate mesh biasing and weld modeling techniques.

The Exhaust Noise is one of the major noise pollutants. It is well-known that for higher noise reduction, the engine has to bear high back pressure. For a race car, back-pressure plays a major role in engine's performance characteristics. For a given condition of engine rpm & load, conventional muffler has a fixed value of back-pressure and noise attenuation. Better acceleration requires low back-pressure, but the exhaust noise should also be less than the required (Norm) value (110 dBA). This contradicting condition is achieved here by using a ‘Butterfly Valve’ in this novel exhaust muffler. The butterfly valve assumes 2 positions i.e. fully open & fully closed. When the valve is fully closed, the noise reduction will be higher, but the back-pressure will also shoot up. When open, noise reduction will be less and so the back-pressure. So, when better performance is required, the valve is opened and back-pressure is reduced. The muffler is designed for a 4 cylinder 600 cc engine.