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Fracture characterization of automotive metals under simple shear deformation is critical for the calibration of advanced fracture models employed in forming and crash simulations. In-plane shear fracture tests of high ductility materials have proved challenging since the sample edge fails first in uniaxial tension before the fracture limit in shear is reached at the center of the gage region. Although through-thickness machining is undesirable, it appears required to promote higher strains within the shear zone. The present study seeks to adapt existing in-plane shear geometries, which have otherwise been successful for many automotive materials, to have a local shear zone with a reduced thickness. It is demonstrated that a novel shear zone with a pocket resembling a “peanut” can promote shear fracture within the shear zone while reducing the risk for edge fracture. An emphasis was placed upon machinability and surface quality for the design of the pocket in the shear zone.

Battery packs of electric vehicles are typically composed of lithium-ion batteries with aluminum and copper acting as cell terminals. These terminals are joined together in series by means of connector tabs to produce sufficient power and energy output. Such critical electrical and structural cell terminal connections involve several challenges when joining thin, highly reflective and dissimilar materials with widely differing thermo-mechanical properties. This may involve potential deformation during the joining process and the formation of brittle intermetallic compounds that reduce conductivity and deteriorate mechanical properties. Among various joining techniques, laser welding has demonstrated significant advantages, including the capability to produce joints with low electrical contact resistance and high mechanical strength, along with high precision required for delicate materials like aluminum and copper.

Most of the skin injuries caused by traffic accidents, sports, falls, etc. are in the intermediate strain rate range (1-100s-1), and the injuries may occur at different sites, impact velocities, and orientations. To investigate the multifactorial mechanical properties of rat skin at intermediate strain rates, a three-factor, three-level experimental protocol was established using the standard orthogonal table L9(34), which includes site (upper dorsal, lower dorsal, and ventral side), strain rate (1s-1, 10s-1, and 100 s-1), and sampling orientation (0°, 45°, and 90° relative to the spine). Uniaxial tensile tests were performed on rat skin samples according to the protocol to obtain stress-stretch ratio curves. Failure strain energy was selected as the index, and the influence of each factor on these indexes, the differences between levels of each factor, and the influence of errors on the results were quantified by analysis of variance (ANOVA).

The characterization of sheet metals under in-plane uniaxial bending is challenging due to the aspect ratios involved that can cause buckling. Anti-buckling plates can be employed but require compensation for contact pressure and friction effects. Recently, a novel in-plane bending fixture was developed to allow for unconstrained sample rotation that does not require an anti-buckling device. The objective of the present study is to design the sample geometry for sheared edge fracture characterization under in-plane bending along with a methodology to resolve the strains exactly at the edge. A series of virtual experiments were conducted for a 1.0 mm thick model material with different hardening rates to identify the influence of gage section length, height, and the radius of the transition region on the bend ratio and potential for buckling. Two specimen geometries are proposed with one suited for constitutive characterization and the other for sheared edge fracture.

Electrical steel, also known as silicon steel, is a ferromagnetic material that is often used in electric vehicles (EVs) for stator and rotor applications. Since the design and manufacturing of rotors require the use of laminated thin electrical steel sheets, the fatigue characterization of these single sheets is of interest. In this study, a 0.27mm thick non-oriented electrical steel sheet was tested under cyclic loading in the load-controlled mode with the load ratio R = 0.1 at room temperature. The specimens were prepared using the Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machining method. The Smith-Watson-Topper mean stress correction was used to find the equivalent fully reversed stress-life (S-N) curve. The Basquin equation was used to describe the fatigue strength of the electrical steel and the fatigue parameters were extracted. Furthermore, a design curve with a reliability of 90% and a confidence level of 90% was generated using Owen’s Tolerance Limit method.

The Self-Piercing Rivet (SPR) is an effective method for joining aluminum sheets and dissimilar materials. The durability assessment of SPR joints is essential for the optimum design of the automotive body-in-white structure. Fatigue analysis is required for any structural system subject to cyclic loading where durability assessment is required. While there is no established fatigue life prediction model for SPR joints, Rupp’s model is a well-established fatigue life prediction method intended for resistance spot welds. Rupp’s model has been the automotive industry’s choice for fatigue life estimation due to its computational efficiency and ability to capture various loading conditions. The purpose of this study is to investigate the compatibility of Rupp’s model with SPR joints. Load-control fatigue testing was conducted on cross-tension SPR joints of aluminum sheets (Al 6016) with dissimilar thicknesses and SPR joints of dissimilar materials (Al 6016 to DX54D steel).

Strict environmental regulations are driving the automotive industry toward electric vehicles as they offer zero emissions. A key component in electric vehicles is the electric motor, where the stator and rotor are manufactured from stacks of thin electrical steel sheets. The electrical steel sheets can be cut in different ways, and the cutting methods may significantly affect the fatigue strength of the component. It is important to understand the effect of the cutting processes on the fatigue properties of electrical steel to ensure there is no premature failure of the electric motor resulting from an improper cutting process. This investigation compared the effect of three different edge preparation methods (stamping, CNC machining, and waterjet cutting) on the fatigue performance of 0.27mm thick electrical steel sheets. To investigate the effect of the edge finish on fatigue behavior, surface roughness was measured for these different samples.

Considering the change of vehicle future power demand in the process of energy distribution can improve the fuel saving effect of hybrid system. However, current studies are mostly based on historical information to predict the future power demand, where it is difficult to guarantee the accuracy of prediction. To tackle this problem, this paper combines hybrid energy management with predictive cruise control, proposing a hierarchical control strategy of predictive energy management (PEM) that includes two layers of algorithms for speed planning and energy distribution. In the interest of decreasing the energy consumed by power components and ensuring transportation timeliness, the upper-level introduces a predictive cruise control algorithm while considering vehicle weight and road slope, planning the future vehicle speed during long-distance driving.

In this paper, tensile experiments were performed on the dorsal and ventral skin of rats, and the mechanical properties of the skin in these two sites were compared and analyzed. A three-factor experimental protocol of site (dorsal and ventral), strain rate (0.71s-1, 7.1×10-3s-1), and sampling orientation (0°, 45° and 90° relative to the spine) was established for tensile test using the L6(31×22) orthogonal table modified from the standard orthogonal table L4 (23). Uniaxial tensile experiments were performed on rat skin samples to calculate the stress-strain curve. The failure strain energy was selected as the index, and the sum of squared deviations of the factors to the index was calculated by analysis of variance (ANOVA), and the contributions of the factors to the failure strain energy were evaluated. The results showed that the site factor has the largest effect on the tensile strain energy with a contribution of 88.9% and a confidence level of 95%.

It is generally considered that the material properties of foam are the most important factors in vehicle seat, which affect the human-seat interface pressure. Therefore, only the role of foam is usually considered when the finite element method is used to simulate the human-seat interface pressure. In this paper, the mechanical properties and the modeling method of commonly used seat cover material were studied. The models of the seat with and without cover were established respectively according to the real-vehicle seat geometric data, and the human-seat interface pressure was simulated after the seat and human model consisting of bones, soft tissue and skin were assembled. The simulation result was compared with the actual measurement results from test, which verified the accuracy of the simulation and the role of seat cover in the human-seat interface pressure simulation.

The hippocampus plays a crucial role in brain function and is one of the important areas of concern in closed head injury. Hippocampal injury is related to a variety of factors including the strength of mechanical load, animal age, and helmet material. To investigate the order of these factors on hippocampal injury, a three-factor, three-level experimental protocol was established using the L9(34) orthogonal table. A closed head injury experiment regarding impact strength (0.3MPa, 0.5MPa, 0.7MPa), rat age (eight- week-old, ten-week-old, twelve-week-old), and helmet material (steel, plastic, rubber) were achieved by striking the rat's head with a pneumatic-driven impactor. The number of hippocampal CA3 cells was used as an evaluation indicator. The contribution of factors to the indicators and the confidence level were obtained by analysis of variance.

Electrical steels are silicon alloyed steels that possess great magnetic properties, making them the ideal material choice for the stator and rotor cores of electric motors. They are typically comprised of laminated stacks of thin electrical steel sheets. An electric motor can reach high temperatures under a heavy load, and it is important to understand the combined effect of temperature and load on the electrical steel’s performance to ensure the long life and safety of electric vehicles. This study investigated the fatigue strength and failure behavior of a 0.27mm thick electrical steel sheet, where the samples were prepared by a stamping process. Stress-control fatigue tests were performed at both room temperature and 150°C. The S-N curve indicated a decrease in the fatigue strength of the samples at the elevated temperature compared to the room temperature by 15-25 MPa in the LCF and HCF regimes, respectively.

The powers generated by the skidding and slipping of a vehicle in unit time during driving are referred to as parasitic power. It has significant effects on wear on the tires, service life, and overall efficiency. However, existing methods to calculate parasitic power expressions that are not solvable in some cases, the reasonableness of the results of their calculations cannot be verified by experiments and the parameters of the loader cannot be calculated during the design of the vehicle. In this paper, we systematically analyze the mechanism of generation of parasitic power based on the differences in the radii of the tires of loaders. We innovatively propose a theoretical calculation method to calculate the wheel circumference parasitic work during the design of the loader. The results of experiments show that errors between the theoretical and experimental values of the wheel circumference parasitic work calculated under various working conditions were smaller than 5%.

The RON(Research Octane Number) is the most important indicator of motor petrol, and the petrol refining process is one of the important links in petrol production. However, RON is often lost during petrol refining and RON Loss means the value of RON lost during petrol refining. The prediction of the RON loss of petrol during the refining process is helpful to the improvement of petrol refining process and the processing of petrol. The traditional RON prediction method relied on physical and chemical properties, and did not fully consider the high nonlinearity and strong coupling relationship of the petrol refining process. There is a lack of data-driven RON loss models. This paper studies the construction of the RON loss model in the petrol refining process.

Autonomous driving technology, as the product of the fifth stage of the information technology revolution, is of great significance for improving urban traffic and environmentally friendly sustainable development. Autonomous driving can be divided into three main modules. The input of the decision module is the perception information from the perception module and the output of the control strategy to the control module. The deep reinforcement learning method proposes an end-to-end decision-making system design scheme. This paper adopts the Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient Algorithm (DDPG) that incorporates the Priority Experience Playback (PER) method. The framework of the algorithm is based on the actor-critic network structure model. The model takes the continuously acquired perception information as input and the continuous control of the vehicle as output.

Plane strain tension is the critical stress state for sheet metal forming because it represents the extremum of the yield function and minima of the forming limit curve and fracture locus. Despite its important role, the stress response in plane strain deformation is routinely overlooked in the calibration of anisotropic plasticity models due to challenges and uncertainty in its characterization. Plane strain tension test specimens used for constitutive characterization typically employ large gage width-to-thickness ratios to promote a homogeneous plane strain stress state. Unfortunately, the specimens are limited to small strain levels due to fracture initiating at the edges in uniaxial tension. In contrast, notched plane strain tension coupons designed for fracture characterization have become common in the automotive industry to calibrate stress-state dependent fracture models. These coupons have significant stress and strain gradients across the gage width to avoid edge fracture.

The presence of residual stresses affects the fatigue response of welded components. In the present study of thick welded cantilever specimens, residual stresses were measured in two A36 steel samples, one in the as-welded condition, and one subjected to a short history of bending loads where substantial local plasticity is expected at the fatigue hot-spot weld toe. Extensive X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) measurements describe the residual stress state in a large region above the weld toe both in an untested as-welded sample and in a sample subjected to a short load history that generated an estimated 0.01 strain amplitude at the stress concentration zone at the weld toe. The results show that such a test will significantly alter the welding-induced residual stresses. Fatigue life prediction methods need to be aware that such alterations are possible and incorporate the effects of such cyclic stress relaxation in life computations.

Taking an off-road vehicle equipped with 32-speed binary logic automatic transmission (AT) as the research object, the slope starting control research is carried out. The slope starting process is divided into the overcoming resistance stage, the sliding friction stage, and the synchronization stage. The control strategies for each stage are designed respectively. Focusing on the control of the sliding friction stage, the equivalent two-speed model of the starting clutch is established, which realizes the calculation of the speed difference and the slip rate between the driving and driven ends of the starting clutch. Furthermore, the slope starting control strategy based on the proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control of the clutch slip rate is designed. Through the simulation tests of the vehicle starting at different slopes, the correctness of the slope starting control strategy has been verified by MATLAB/Simulink.

To quickly and efficiently match the planetary gearset characteristic parameter of power-spilt hybrid vehicles so that their oil-saving potential can be maximized, this study proposes a parameter matching method that comprehensively considers energy management strategy and driving cycle based on an analysis of vehicle instantaneous efficiency. The method is used to match the planetary characteristic parameter of a power-split hybrid light truck. The relevant conclusions are compared with the influence of various planetary characteristic parameters on fuel consumption obtained through simulation under typical operating conditions. The simulation results show that the influence laws of the various planetary characteristic parameters on vehicle average efficiency are similar to those on fuel consumption. The proposed parameter-matching method based on vehicle efficiency analysis can effectively match the planetary characteristic parameter for power-split hybrid powertrains.

Aiming at the low transmission efficiency and power density of the hydraulic automatic transmission (AT), and the increasingly complex structure of its planetary gear with the increase of transmission gears, this paper proposes a new type of binary logic transmission (BLT), which adopts the double internal meshing planetary row (DIMPR), based on a heavy-duty commercial vehicle. By introducing the concept of BLT and analyzing the transmission performance of the DIMPR, the process of scheme design of binary double internal meshing planetary gear transmission (BDIMPGT) is established. According to the structural characteristics of the DIMPG, the support structure of the planetary gear is designed based on CAD and CATIA. In the structural design of binary clutches, V-groove clutch parts are coupled to the transmission case, planetary carrier, and sun shaft, respectively, in each DIMPG.