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This paper presents the application of a proposed fuzzy inference system as part of a stability control design scheme implemented with active steering actuator sets. The fuzzy inference system is used to detect the level of overseer/understeer at the high level and a speed-adaptive activation module determines whether an active front steering, active rear steering, or active 4 wheel steering is suited to improve vehicle handling stability. The resulting model-free system is capable of minimizing the amount of model calibration during the vehicle stability control development process as well as improving vehicle performance and stability over a wide range of vehicle and road conditions. A simulation study will be presented that evaluates the proposed scheme and compares the effectiveness of active front steer (AFS) and active rear steer (ARS) in enhancing the vehicle performance. Both time and frequency domain results are presented.

The efforts of the ISO “Test Variability Task Force” have been aimed at improving the understanding and at reducing brake dynamometer test variability during performance testing. In addition, dynamometer test results have been compared and correlated to vehicle testing. Even though there is already a vast amount of anecdotal evidence confirming the fact that different procedures generate different friction coefficients on the same brake corner, the availability of supporting data to the industry has been elusive up to this point. To overcome this issue, this paper focuses on assessing friction levels, friction coefficient sensitivity, and repeatability under ECE, GB, ISO, JASO, and SAE laboratory friction evaluation tests.

The objectives of this study were a) to determine how expert judges categorized valid Integrated Vehicle-Based Safety Systems (IVBSS) Forward Collision Warning (FCW) events from review of naturalistic driving data; and b) to determine how consistent these categorizations were across the judges working in pairs. FCW event data were gathered from 108 drivers who drove instrumented vehicles for 6 weeks each. The data included video of the driver and road scene ahead, beside, and behind the vehicle; audio of the FCW alert onset; and engineering data such as speed and braking applications. Six automotive safety experts examined 197 ‘valid’ (i.e., conditions met design intent) FCW events and categorized each according to a taxonomy of primary contributing factors. Results indicated that of these valid FCW events, between 55% and 73% could be considered ‘nuisance alerts’ by the driver.

Combustion engines are typically only 20-30% efficient at part-load operating conditions, resulting in poor fuel economy on average. To address this, LiquidPiston has developed an improved thermodynamics cycle, called the High-Efficiency Hybrid Cycle (HEHC), which optimizes each process (stroke) of the engine operation, with the aim of maximizing fuel efficiency. The cycle consists of: 1) a high compression ratio; 2) constant-volume combustion, and 3) over-expansion. At a modest compression ratio of 18:1, this cycle offers an ideal thermodynamic efficiency of 74%. To embody the HEHC cycle, LiquidPiston has developed two very different rotary engine architectures ? called the ?M? and ?X? engines. These rotary engine architectures offer flexibility in executing the thermodynamics cycle, and also result in a very compact package. In this talk, I will present recent results in the development of the LiquidPiston engines. The company is currently testing 20 and 40 HP versions of the ?M?

The Focus Electric is Ford�s first full-featured 5 passenger battery electric vehicle. The engineering team set our sights on achieving best-in-class function and efficiency and was successful with an EPA certified 1XX MPGe and range XXX then the facing competition allowing for a slightly lower capacity battery pack and larger vehicle without customer trade-off. We briefly overview the engineering method and technologies employed to deliver the results as well as sharing some of the functional challenges unique to this type of vehicle. Presenter Charles Gray, Ford Motor Co.

This presentation proposes an approach to use ABS wheel speed sensor signals together with other vehicle state information from a brake control module to detect an unbalanced tire or tires in real-time. The proposed approach consists of two-stage algorithms that mix a qualitative method using band-pass filtering with a quantitative parameter identification using conditional least squares. This two-stage approach can improve the robustness of tire imbalance or imbalances. The proposed approach is verified through vehicle testing and the test results show the effectiveness of the approach. Presenter Jianbo Lu, Ford Motor Co.

The presentation offers a brief history of the electric vehicle and parallels the realities of those early vehicles with the challenges and solutions of the electrified vehicles coming to market today. A technology evolution for every major component of these vehicles has now made this mode of transportation viable. The Focus Electric is Ford's first electric passenger car utilizing the advanced technology developments to meet the needs of electric car buyers in this emerging market. Presenter Charles Gray, Ford Motor Co.

The present work discusses an objective test and analysis method developed to quickly quantify steering gear rattle noise heard in a vehicle. Utilizing envelope analysis on the time history data of the rattle signal, the resulting method is simple, fast, practical and yields a single-valued metric which correlates well to subjective measures of rattle noise. In contrast to many other rattle analysis methods, the approach discussed here is completed in the time domain. As applied to rattle noise produced by automotive electric steering systems, the metric produced with this analysis method correlates well with subjective appraisals of vehicle-level rattle noise performance. Lastly, this method can also be extended to rattle measurements at the component and subcomponent level.

This paper proposes an approach to use ABS wheel speed sensor signals together with other vehicle state information from a brake control module to detect an unbalanced tire or tires in real-time. The proposed approach consists of two-stage algorithms that mix a qualitative method using band-pass filtering with a quantitative parameter identification using conditional least squares. This two-stage approach can improve the robustness of tire imbalance or imbalances. The proposed approach is verified through vehicle testing and the test results show the effectiveness of the approach.

Most people still remember the introduction of the IBM PC in 1981 and the first Microsoft Windows operating system in 1985. These were the pioneering technologies that started a revolution in automotive test equipment in the service bay. What was once a purely mechanical garage environment where information was published annually in large paper manuals has evolved into a highly technical computing environment. Today vehicle networks link onboard vehicle control systems with diagnostic systems and updated service information is published daily over the Internet. A lot has changed over the last twenty years, and manufacturers of diagnostic test equipment are learning to deal with the constantly evolving computing platforms and host operating systems. This paper traces the history of automotive diagnostic equipment at Ford Motor Company and shares some of the hard lessons learned from the early systems.

Internal combustion engines are designed to meet the high power, low fuel consumption and also, low exhaust emissions. The engine running conditions is valid the concept that, the expectative is very high because of the variety of operating conditions like cold start, frequent start and stop, time high speed and load, traditional gasoline, mix of gasoline and alcohol and finally, alcohol fuel only. Considering such demand, this paper explains the relationship between the reliability bathtub curve, specifically the "Infant Mortality" portion. The bathtub curve describes failure rate as a function of time. The "Infant Mortality" portion of the curve is the initial section for which the failure (death) rate decreases with time (age). In general, these problems are related to manufacturing aspects or poor design definitions. With development of technology, hard failures, the ones that cause dependability, are becoming rare.

Emerging markets and South America in particular, have quickly become the cornerstone of major automotive companies in recent years. Currently, all major players are located in the region, and this has created an excellent environment for developing market-tailored products. The trend in the design and technology community is one which allows the final customer to improve his own safety and reduce overall power consumption. Throughout the entire automotive industry, the lighting system has always had a very important role to play during its long history. In the past 50 years, vehicular lighting has achieved an important status due to its close relationship by enhancing passenger and vehicle security. In addition, there is still room for improvement in the halogen front lighting system. Particularly, it is of utmost importance to highlight the implementation of NEO (new efficient optics).

In this paper a diagnostic design process is proposed for developmental vehicles where mainstream design process is not well-suited. First a review of current practice in on-board vehicle fault diagnostics design is presented with particular focus on the application of this process to the development of the Ford Escape Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) program and a demonstration Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV) program. Based on the review and evaluation of these experiences, a new tool for diagnostics design is proposed that promises to make the design more traceable, to reduce the repetition of work, and to improve understandability and reuse.

Over the past several years a task group within the SAE Automotive Corrosion and Protection (ACAP) Committee has conducted extensive on-vehicle field testing and numerous accelerated lab tests with the goal of establishing a standard accelerated test method for cosmetic corrosion evaluations of finished aluminum auto body panels. This project has been a cooperative effort with OEM, supplier, and consultant participation and was also supported in part by DOE through USAMP (AMD 309). The focus of this project has been the identification of a standardized accelerated cosmetic corrosion test that exhibits the same appearance, severity, and type of corrosion products that are exhibited on identical painted aluminum panels exposed to service relevant environments. Multi-year service relevant exposures were conducted by mounting panels on-vehicles in multiple locations in the US and Canada.

As automotive manufacturers continue to increase their use of thermoplastics for interior and exterior components, there is a likelihood of squeaks due to material contacts. To address this issue, Ford's Body Chassis NVH Squeak and Rattle Prevention Engineering Department has developed a tester that can measure friction, and any accompanying audible sound, as a function of sliding velocity, normal load, surface roughness, and environmental factors. The Ford team has been using the tester to address manufacturing plant issues and to develop a database of polymeric material pairings that will be used as a guide for current and future designs to eliminate potential noise concerns. Based upon the database, along with a physical property analysis of the various plastic (viscoelastic) materials used in the interior, we are in the process of developing an analytical model which will be a tool to predict frictional behavior.

The objective of this project was to develop a methodology for the diagnosis of vibrations of the vehicle's steering wheel. This paper will describe an attempt at developing a systematic approach for describing the vibrations felt, what the sources might be, and how various steering system parameters might affect the vibrations.

Today nearly all automotive manufacturers are developing motor-generator systems for improved fuel economy by implementing idling-stop and other power train enhancements. It is said that powertrain technology has always pioneered the development of automotive electronic control throughout history. The integrated starter generator (ISG) promises to expand the scope of powertrain control further through fuel economy improvement, emissions reduction, longitudinal vehicle dynamics improvement and customer feature enhancements. At the present time the cost imposed by usage of an ISG system is very high due mainly to its need for a power optimized 42V battery and high power electronics. This paper takes a critical look at the vehicle benefits attributable to ISG and its implementation costs over various vehicle classes.

A review of flame kernel growth in SI engines and the regimes of premixed turbulent combustion showed that a misfire model based on regimes of premixed turbulent combustion was warranted[1]. The present study will further validate the misfire model and show that it has captured the dominating physics and avoided extremely complex, yet inefficient, models. Results showed that regimes of turbulent combustion could, indeed, be used for a concept-simple model to predict misfire limits in SI engines. Just as importantly, the entire regimes of premixed turbulent combustion in SI engines were also mapped out with the model.

Oscillating heat transfer is a fundamental phenomenon occurring in Stirling machines and IC engines. A group of relevant dimensionless numbers which characterize this problem is identified by dimensional analysis. The convective heat transfer coefficient, or Nusselt number, is a function of the Reynolds number, the Prandtl number, plus the dynamic Reynolds number and the dimensionless amplitude, when compressibility is not considered. The case for compressible fluid is more complicated. An experiential study confirms above analysis and results in a nonlinear longitudinal fluid temperature distribution in the pipe. The history effect is found to affect the heat transfer rate remarkably. A correlation equation for Nusselt number is obtained by multivariate analysis.

High mileage NVH performance is one of the major concerns in vehicle design for long term customer satisfaction. The current paper is concerned with performance analysis of high mileage vehicles which cover four automobile manufacturers and five vehicle families of the same weight class based on subjective evaluation data. The analysis includes the assessment of five vehicle families from the following aspects: overall and NVH performances, performance by individual attribute, degradation history of each vehicle family, performance variation within each vehicle family. Since the data are statistical in nature, statistical methods are employed, numerically and graphically, in the analysis. The performance categories which exhibit most degradation are identified. The analysis method presented in this paper is applicable to any high mileage vehicle fleet subjective data. The knowledge derived in the study can be used as a guideline in designing vehicles for high mileage NVH robustness.