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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.

FEA based simulations are extensively used in automotive industry for improving the product design and reducing the time taken for design and prototyping. FEA based simulations require material data as an input in form of material models. Most commonly used material models for simulation of metallic materials are elastic models and elasto-plastic models, which provide very good correlation till ultimate tensile strength (UTS). For simulation beyond UTS value, elasto-plastic material model has to be used along with material model considering the damage accumulation post UTS. For crash like event in automotive crash, required material models should consider the effect of various stress state conditions (Triaxiality) and strain rate sensitivity of materials along with damage accumulation. In LS Dyna solver, MAT_ADD_EROSION material model (GISSMO) along with MAT_024 is widely used for these applications.

An excellent physical and mechanical property makes Aluminium (Al) alloy suitable alternative lightweight materials against steel and cast iron in automotive components. ICME is a computational tool, which integrates the materials information to engineering product performance analysis. MatCalc is ICME tool, which follows the chain rule of process, microstructure, property and performance relationship in materials development. This paper reports the development of Al 6061-T6 propeller shaft through forging process and the materials and process model of the Al yoke is simulated using MatCalc simulation software. Finite element analysis method is used for designing of Al 6061-T6 propeller shaft. The forged Al yoke is solutionized at temperature 550°C for 1 hr followed by artificial ageing at temperature 180°C for 16 hrs to improve the hardness and strength of the yoke.

Major cause of air pollution in the world is due to burning of fossil fuels for transport application; around 23% GHG emissions are produced due to transport sector. Likewise, the major cause of air pollution in Indian cities is also due to transport sector. Marginal improvement in the fuel economy provide profound impact on surrounding air quality and lightweighting of vehicle mass is the key factor in improving fuel economy. The paper describes robust and integrated approach used for design and development of lightweight bus structures for Indian city bus applications. An attempt is made to demonstrate the use of environment friendly material like aluminium in development of lightweight superstrutured city buses for India. Exercise involved design, development and prototype manufacturing of 12m Low Entry and 12m Semi Low Floor (SLF) bus models.

The increasing demand for light weighting products due to introduction of various standards and norms for controlling CO2 emissions and to meet the customer requirement of low cost with higher strength and rigidity of product in automotive industry, sheet metal manufacturing technique is adopted for automotive steering yoke for light commercial vehicle. Currently forged yokes are used for higher strength requirement, while sheet metal yokes are being used for small tonnage vehicle. The attempt has been made to improve overall strength and rigidity of the yoke produced by sheet metal operation using SAPH 440 steel with 6.5mm thickness for light commercial vehicle segments. The major challenge identified for this development was developing such a high strength and thickness material with consistency of dimension during forming process and meeting the torsional strength requirement of 500 Nm.

In the present study, an aluminium based nanocomposite, reinforced with 2 wt. % aluminium oxide (Al2O3) is developed through stir casting method. These hard ceramic particles also influence the material removal rate (MRR), electrode wear rate (EWR) and surface finish (Ra) in an electro-discharge machining (EDM) process. In this work, EDM of Al 7075/2 wt. % Al2O3 nanocomposite is carried out using copper and brass electrodes using Taguchi L18 array. The percentage contribution of each process parameter on the response variables was determined using analysis of variance (ANOVA). Multi-response signal to noise ratio (MRSN) and the optimum combination levels for the input parameters was obtained using Taguchi’s parametric design. MRR and surface roughness are substantially improved when machining is performed at optimized conditions.

In additive manufacturing, lasercusing is the selective laser melting technique. Finely pulverized metal is melted using a high-energy fibre laser, by Island principle strategy produces mechanically and thermally stable metallic components with reduced thermal gradients, stresses & at high precision. Maraging steel 300 (18Ni-300) is an iron-nickel steel alloy often used in applications requires high fracture toughness and strength. It maintains dimensional changes at a minimal level, e.g. aircraft and aerospace industries for rocket motor castings and landing gear or tooling applications. Current research attempts to analyze the effect of laser shock peening on lasercused material. Surface roughness of the material was found to be increased by 8%, due to effect of laser shock pulse & ablative nature. Also 8% increase in macro hardness on the surface.

Direct Metal Deposition (DMD) is a rapid prototyping technique used to fabricate and repair metallic prototypes. It can be used in the production of complex geometries and unique parts. In functional automotive applications wear characteristics hold key importance. In the present study, an analysis on the influence of various parameters (coating thickness, load and temperature) on the wear characteristics of Direct Metal Deposited (DMD) Inconel 625 coating has been carried out using a Design of Experiments (DOE). ANOVA calculations were performed to find out which of these parameters showed significant influence on the wear properties. It was found that load was the most significant parameter influencing the wear characteristics .Similarly load was found to be most influencing parameter for co efficient of friction. The trend was found to follow when verified at 30 second, 3 minutes, 60 minutes and 120 minutes.

The main objective of the study is to design and analyze casing and supports of a transmission system for an electric vehicle. The system comprises of motors as the power source, constant mesh gear box coupled with limited slip differential as the power transmitting source. The space occupied by the transmission system is a foremost constraint in designing the system. The wear and tear in the system is caused by the gear meshing process and transmission error which lead to failure of the transmission system. This internal excitation also produces a dynamic mesh force, which is transmitted to the casing and mounts through shafts and bearings. In order to overcome such issues in a transmission system, a gear box casing, differential mounts and motor mounts have been designed by the use of CAD-modeling software “SOLIDWORKS”. The designs were imported to FEA software “ANSYS” for carrying out static structural analysis.

The present work is concentrated to study the effect of varying inlet pressures on the dynamics of the suction valve obtained from a hermetic reciprocating compressor. The effect of valve functioning on the efficiency of a compressor is highly acceptable. Rather than the delivery valve, the suction valve has a significant impact on the compressor efficiency. The reed valve in a hermetic compressor is a cantilever type arrangement. The valve operates due to the pressure difference between the suction muffler and the cylinder. The numerical analysis which includes Fluid-structure interaction is used in the present study. The flow and structural domain employed in the present study are modelled with Solidworks 15.0. The fluid structure interaction analysis is a combination of ANSYS Fluent and ANSYS structural. These two are coupled with a system coupling in ANSYS Workbench 16.0. The numerical results obtained from the simulation are validated with the experimental data.

Forging is a metal forming process involving shaping of metal by the application of compressive forces using hammer or press. Forging load of equipment is an important function of forging process and the prediction of the same is essential for selection of appropriate equipment. In this study a hot forging material i.e. 42CrMo4 steel is selected which is used in automotive components like axle, crank shaft. Hot forging experiments at 750°C are carried out on cylindrical specimens of aspect ratio 0.75 and 1.5 with true height strain (ln (ho/hf)) of 0.6. Forging load for the experiments is calculated using slab and upper bound deformation models as well as Metal forming simulation using commercially available FEA software. The upper bound models with 30% deviation from the simulation results are found to be more accurate compared to the slab models.

Utilization of higher ethanol blends, 20% ethanol in gasoline (E20), as an alternate fuel can provide apparent benefits like higher octane number leading to improved anti-knocking properties, higher oxygen content resulting in complete combustion. Apart from technical benefits, use of ethanol blends offer certain widespread socioeconomic benefits including option of renewable source of energy, value addition to agriculture feedstock resulting in increase in farm income, creation of more jobs in rural sector and creating job at local levels. Use of higher blends of ethanol can reduce dependence on foreign crude leading to substantial savings in cost of petroleum import. The impact of higher Gasoline-Ethanol blend (E20), on the fuel system components of gasoline vehicles must be known for assessment of whether the fuel system will be able to perform as intended for the complete design life of the system.

Nickel electroplating is commonly used with substrates including steel, aluminum, plastic and zinc die-cast parts because of its high resistance to temperature, corrosion and wear in harsh conditions. To further enhance its tribological and mechanical properties, research works are going on to produce nano-reinforced composites of Ni with various ceramic and rare earth oxides like CeO2, ZrSiO4, SiC, TiO2, etc. The aim of present work is synthesis and characterization of Ni films and Ni based TiO2 nano-composite coating processed by pulse co-electrodeposition technique. Also, to investigate the various properties such as mechanical, wear and corrosion resistance, conductivity & thermal stability of Ni-TiO2 nanocomposites electrodeposited on steel substrate, especially the effects of the amount of nanosized TiO2 particles in Ni-TiO2 nanocomposites.

With the ever increasing emphasis on vehicle occupant safety, the safety of pedestrians is getting obscured behind the A-pillars that are expanding in order to meet the federal roof crush standards. The serious issue of pillar blind spots poses threats to the pedestrians who easily disappear from driver's field of view. To recognize this blinding danger and design the car around the driver's eye, this paper proposes the implementation of Aluminum Oxynitride marked under name AlON by Surmet Corporation for fabrication of A-pillars that can allow more than 80% visibility through them. AlON is a polycrystalline ceramic with cubic spinel crystal structure and is composed of aluminum, oxygen and nitrogen. With hardness more than 85% than sapphire, its applications range from aerospace to defense purposes which qualify it in terms of strength and thus imply that it can be conveniently used as A-pillars in vehicles. Furthermore, it possesses characteristics of being bonded to metals as well.

In a fastening system when there is a small misalignment of the holes, the holes are enlarged to align the axes and a next size fastener is used to fit the joint. But when the misalignment is large then the enlargement need to be proportionally large. In this case a bushing is press fit onto the hole to handle the fastening. If we press fit a bushing, it generates residual stresses in the panel. These residual stresses reduce the damage life of the components on which the bushings were press fit. In the aircraft engine nacelle components the damage life is very critical in various failure conditions such as fan blade out condition, wind milling and bird strike. It increases the flight time in these events. Here four different case studies were considered to study the damage life of the aircraft components made of Aluminum or composite material.