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Finite element simulation (FE) makes it possible to analyze the structural dynamic behavior of vehicle seat structures in early design phases to meet Noise-Vibration-Harshness (NVH) requirements. For this purpose, linear simulations are usually used, which neglect many nonlinear mechanical properties of the real structure. These models are trimmed to fit global vibration behavior based on the complex description of contact or jointed definitions. Targeted design is therefore only possible to a limited extent. The aim of this work is to characterize the entire seat structure and its sub-components in order to identify the main contributors using experimental and simulative data. The Lagrange Multiplier Frequency Based Substructuring (LM-FBS) method is used for this purpose. Therefore, the individual subsystems of seat frame, seat backrest and headrest are characterized under different conditions.

The European Commission has released strict emission regulations for passenger cars in the past decade in order to improve air quality in cities and limit harmful emission exposure to humans. In the near future, even stricter regulations containing more realistic/demanding driving scenarios and covering more exhaust gas components are expected to be released. Passenger cars fueled with gasoline are one contributor to unhealthy air conditions, due to the fact that gasoline engines emit harmful air pollutants. One option to minimize harmful emissions would be to utilize specifically tailored, low emission synthetic fuels or fuel blends in internal combustion engines. Methyl formate and dimethyl carbonate are two promising candidates to replace or substitute gasoline, which in previous studies have proven to significantly decrease harmful pollutants.

Autonomous driving systems and connected mobility are the next big developments for the car manufacturers and their suppliers during the next decade. To achieve the high computing power needs and fulfill new upcoming requirements due to functional safety and security, heterogeneous processor architectures with a mixture of different core architectures and hardware accelerators are necessary. To tackle this new type of hardware complexity and nevertheless stay within monetary constraints, high performance computers, inspired by state of the art data center hardware, could be adapted in order to fulfill automotive quality requirements. The European Processor Initiative (EPI) research project tries to come along with that challenge for next generation semiconductors. To be as close as possible to series development needs for the next upcoming car generations, we present a hybrid semiconductor system-on-chip architecture for automotive.

Ultrasonic transducers are widely used in automotive and industrial applications for surround sensing. Anisotropic directivity patterns with a narrow-angled beam in the vertical plane and a wide-angled beam in the horizontal plane are needed in automotive applications particularly. Today’s ultrasonic transducers for automotive applications are mainly metal based, pot-like ultrasonic transducers. The anisotropic directivity pattern is achieved by increasing the thickness of the vibrating plate-like part of the structure locally. Composites with locally structured fiber reinforcements open up the possibility to design the dynamical behavior of components without changing its contour. Using this new dimension of design to modify the directivity pattern of sound radiating components is less examined in literature.

Thermoplastic fibre reinforced composites offer a wide range of adjusting the material behaviour by varying material selection, layup and fibre orientation. By default, damping and stiffness of composites are contradictory material properties related to the fibre orientation. Thus, finite element analysis (FEA) based composite design requires special modelling efforts implying anisotropic damping of the composite as well as fluid-structure-inter-action for the oil filling. In contrast, multi-dimensional optimisations for various layups require computationally fast numerical solutions. In this study, a complex but efficient vibro-acoustic modelling approach of a composite oil pan is presented. The FEA model includes a strain energy based modal damping approach for the layerwise accumulation of the anisotropic composite damping as well as a structural representation of the additional mass of the oil filling avoiding fluid modelling.

Current regulatory developments aim for stricter emission limits, increased environmental protection and purification of air on a local and global scale. In order to find solutions for a cleaner combustion process, it is necessary to identify the critical components and parameters responsible for the formation of emissions. This work provides an evaluation process for particle formation during combustion of a modern direct injection engine, which can help to create new aftertreatment techniques, such as a gasoline particle filter (GPF) system, that are fit for purpose. With the advent of “real driving emission” (RDE) regulations, which include market fuels for the particulate number testing procedure, the chemical composition and overall quality of the fuel cannot be neglected in order to yield a comparable emission test within the EU and worldwide.

This study discusses model-based injection rate estimation in common rail diesel injectors exhibiting aging phenomena. Since they result in unexpected injection behavior, aging effects like coking or cavitation may impair combustion performance, which justifies the need for new modeling and estimation approaches. To predict injection characteristics, a simulation model for the bottom section of the injector is introduced, with a main focus on modeling the hydraulic components. Using rail pressure and control piston lift as inputs, a reduced model is then derived in state-space representation, which may be used for the application of an observer in hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) environments. Both models are compared and validated with experimental data, with which they show good agreement. Aging effects and nozzle wear, which result in model uncertainties, are considered using a fault model in combination with an extended Kalman filter (EKF) observer scheme.

Air charge calibration of turbocharged SI gasoline engines with both variable inlet valve lift and variable inlet and exhaust valve opening angle has to be very accurate and needs a high number of measurements. In particular, the modeling of the transition area from unthrottled, inlet valve controlled resp. throttled mode to turbocharged mode, suffers from small number of measurements (e.g. when applying Design of Experiments (DoE)). This is due to the strong impact of residual gas respectively scavenging dominating locally in this area. In this article, a virtual residual gas sensor in order to enable black-box-modeling of the air charge is presented. The sensor is a multilayer perceptron artificial neural network. Amongst others, the physically calculated air mass is used as training data for the artificial neural network.

The BMW Group has introduced electric cars to the market with the MINI E already in 2009. The next step will be the launch of the BMW ActiveE in 2011, followed by the revolutionary Mega City Vehicle in 2013. The presentation will explain the BMW Group strategy for implementing sustainable mobility. A focus will be emobility, the use of carbon fiber and the holistic sustainability approach of BMW Group?s project i. Reference will be made to the research results of the MINI E projects in the US and in Europe. Presenter Andreas Klugescheid, BMW AG

The quality of the paint application in automotive industry depends on several process parameters. Thus, finding an optimal solution based on experimental configuration is tedious and time consuming. A first step to reduce the effort is to model the application within the framework of a simulation environment. In this study, we present an approach for the systematic variation of design parameters of the paint process to quantify their influence on the quality of the paint application. Using that information the design space is reduced by neglecting the parameters with low impact and later used to predict an optimal set of input parameters for an optimal paint application.

BMW - the driving force for progress As we approach the new millenium, to ensure the continuation of the progress into the future, BMW uses leading edge approaches in its materials research and processing. Overview production sites all over the world - Plant Dingolfing Quality requirements for automobile painting The complex and wide-ranging demands that the outer skin of an automobile has to meet offered us the chance to advance with a technological leap from liquid clear coat to the potentials of powder clear coat. The new clear coat technology The clear coat creates the ultimate gloss effect - and powder-based clear coat makes the surface of the car even more brilliant. To achieve this effect the body is covered by microscopically small paint particles. A pioneer achievement A lot of challenges in both material development and systems-engineering had to be made. The automotive world was watching, many experts said it could not be successfully used as an OEM clear coat.

Fast and exact measurement of engine oil consumption is a very difficult task. Our aim is to achieve this measurement at a common test bed without engine modifications. We resolved this problem with a new technique using Laser Mass Spectrometry to detect appropriate tracers in the raw engine exhaust. The tracers are added to the engine oil. to the engine oil. For detection of these tracers we use a Laser Mass Spectrometer (LAMS). This is a combination of resonant laser ionization (with an all-solid-state laser) and Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry. Currently this is the only way to detect oil originated molecules (like our tracers) in the raw exhaust very fast (50 Hz) and sensitive (ppb-region). Thus, engine mapping of oil consumption over load and speed can be performed in 1-2 days with about 90 measurements. Even measurement during dynamic engine operation is possible, but not quantitative (due to the lack of information about dynamic exhaust gas mass flow).

For the first time in volume production, supporting welded aluminum structures were used in the chassis area. Metal sheets, extruded sections, longitudinally seam welded pipes and castings were used as semi-finished products. Extensive strength tests, in cooperation with the Design Department and Production, resulted in sophisticated design solutions. In considering matters important to the customer, these solutions were substantiated through numerous examinations which are especially necessary for aluminum.

In a joint research project between industrial companies and a number of research institutes, nitrogen oxide conversion in oxygen containing exhaust gas has been investigated according to the following procedure Basic investigations of elementary steps of the chemical reaction Production and prescreening of different catalytic material on laboratory scale Application oriented screening of industrial catalyst material Catalyst testing on a lean bum gasoline engine, passenger car diesel engines (swirl chamber and DI) and on a DI truck engine Although a number of solid body structures show nitrogen oxide reduction by hydrocarbons, only noble metal containing catalysts and transition metal exchanged zeolites gave catalytic efficiencies of industrial relevance. A maximum of 25 % NOx reduction was found in the European driving cycle for passenger cars, about 40 % for truck engines in the respective European test.

The production of the BMW ALPINA B12 5.7 with Switch-Tronic transmission provides the markets of Europe and Japan with an exclusive, luxury-orientated, high performance limited series limousine. This is the first vehicle worldwide to be fitted with the progressive exhaust gas aftertreatment technology known as the Electrically Heated Catalyst (EHC), in which the effectiveness of the power utilized is increased significantly by an alternating heating process for both catalytic converters. Only since this achievement has the implementation of the EHC been viable without extensive modification to the battery and alternator. With this exhaust gas aftertreatment concept, the emissions of this high performance vehicle will fall to less than half the maximum permissible for compliance with 1996 emission standards.

A lot of very valuable information has already been gained in the process of dismantling, assorting and reconditioning plastic parts on old cars, in reconditioning defective plastic parts from workshops, and in the use of reject parts from production. This know-how is now applied primarily to increase the use of recycled plastics and to optimise the composition and design of future plastic components in the interest of recycling, since further development in these areas is essential in order to establish economically stable material cycles functioning properly in the long term. The present paper describes the most important criteria through which the materials and designs chosen affect the processes and principles of recycling in the case of plastic parts and components.

A new analytical method for the automobile industry has been developed using a pulsed tunable laser system and a Reflectron time-of-flight mass spectrometer. The goal was to achieve the following conditions: High time resolution (〈100ms), high sensitivity (down to 1 ppm), high accuracy (10%) and applicability to most exhaust emission components. The main problem is the large number of components with very different and fast varying concentrations. For a preliminary list of 25 exhaust emission components, all necessary parameters have been determined. First results obtained from a real exhaust gas sample will be presented.

In studying H2S emissions, it is desirable to have an analytical technique which is rapid, continuous, accurate and easy to use in a laboratory or vehicle exhaust environment. Typically, H2S has been measured using the EPA impinger method with collection times on the order of 1 to 2 minutes. Other techniques have been developed with significantly shorter response times. However, it has been shown that the major release of H2S occurs in less than 20 seconds after a vehicle changes from rich to lean operation. Therefore, it is highly desirable to have an H2S analytical technique with a response time of less than 10 seconds. In this paper, the benefits of use of a chemical ionization mass spectrometer (CIMS) to continuously monitor H2S and SO2, emissions are reported. Using the CIMS technique, the effects of several operating parameters on the release of H2S and SO2 from automotive catalysts were studied.