Search Results

Take notes! Take the wheel! There is no better place to gain an appreciation for vehicle dynamics than from the driver’s seat. Spend three, intense days with a world-renowned vehicle dynamics engineer and SAE Master Instructor, his team of experienced industry engineers, and the BMW-trained professional driving instructors. They will guide you as you work your way through 12 classroom modules learning how and why vehicles go, stop and turn. Each classroom module is immediately followed by an engaging driving exercise on BMW’s private test track.

Active safety and (ADAS) are now being introduced to the marketplace as they serve as key enablers for anticipated autonomous driving systems. Automatic emergency braking (AEB) is one ADAS application which is either in the marketplace presently or under development as nearly all automakers have pledged to offer this technology by the year 2022. This one-day course is designed to provide an overview of the typical ADAS AEB system from multiple perspectives.

This course is verified by Probitas Authentication as meeting the AS9104/3A requirements for continuing Professional Development. AS13100 and RM13000 define the Problem-Solving standard for suppliers within the aero-engine sector, with the Eight Disciplines (8D) problem solving method the basis for this standard. This two-day course provides participants with a comprehensive and standardized set of tools to become an 8D practitioner. Successful application of 8D achieves robust corrective and preventive actions to reduce the risk of repeat occurrences and minimize the cost of poor quality.

This course is verified by Probitas as meeting the AS9104/3A requirements for Continuing Professional Development. Production and continual improvement of safe and reliable products is key in the aviation, space, and defense industries. Customer and regulatory requirements must not only be met, but they are typically expected to exceeded requirements. Due to globalization, the supply chain of this industry has been expanded to countries which were not part of it in the past and has complicated the achievement of requirements compliance and customer satisfaction.

This course is verified by Probitas Authentication as meeting the AS9104/3A requirements for continuing Professional Development. In the Aerospace Industry there is a focus on Defect Prevention to ensure that quality goals are met. Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (PFMEA) and Control Plan activities are recognized as being one of the most effective, on the journey to Zero Defects. This two-day course is designed to explain the core tools of Design Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (DFMEA), Process Flow Diagrams, Process Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (PFMEA) and Control Plans as described in AS13100 and RM13004.

On the path to decarbonizing road transport, electric commercial vehicles will play a significant role. The first applications were directed to the smaller trucks for distribution traffic with relatively moderate driving and range requirements, but meanwhile, the first generation of a complete portfolio of truck sizes is developed and available on the market. In these early applications, many compromises were accepted to overcome component availability, but meanwhile, the supply chain can address the specific needs of electric trucks. With that, the optimization towards higher usability and lower costs can be moved to the next level. Especially for long-haul trucks, efficiency is a driving factor for the total costs of ownership. Besides the propulsion system, all other systems must be optimized for higher efficiency. This includes thermal management since the thermal management components consume energy and have a direct impact on the driving range.

In electrified vehicles, auxiliary units can be a dominant source of noise, one of which is the refrigerant scroll compressor. Compared to vehicles with combustion engines, e-vehicles require larger refrigerant compressors, as in addition to the interior, also the battery and the electric motors have to be cooled. Currently, scroll compressors are widely used in the automotive industry, which generate one pressure pulse per revolution due to their discontinuous compression principle. This results in speed-dependent pressure fluctuations as well as higher-harmonic pulsations that arise from reflections. These fluctuations spread through the refrigeration cycle and cause the vibration excitation of refrigerant lines and heat exchangers. The sound transmission path in the air conditioning heat exchanger integrated in the dashboard is particularly critical. Various silencer configurations can be used to dampen these pulsations.

With the automotive industry's increasing focus on electromobility and the growing share of electric cars, new challenges are arising for the development of electric motors. The requirements for torque and power of traction motors are constantly growing, while installation space, costs and weight are increasingly becoming limiting factors. Moreover, there is an inherent conflict in the design between power density and efficiency of an electric motor. Thus, a main focus in today's development lies on space-saving and yet effective and innovative cooling systems. This paper presents an approach for a multi-physical optimization that combines the domains of electromagnetics and thermodynamics. Based on a reference machine, this simulative study examins a total of nine different stator cooling concepts varying the cooling duct positions and end-winding cooling concepts.

Homologation is an important process in vehicle development and aerodynamics a main data contributor. The process is heavily interconnected: Production planning defines the available assemblies. Construction defines their parts and features. Sales defines the assemblies offered in different markets, where Legislation defines the rules applicable to homologation. Control engineers define the behavior of active, aerodynamically relevant components. Wind tunnels are the main test tool for the homologation, accompanied by surface-area measurement systems. Mechanics support these test operations. The prototype management provides test vehicles, while parts come from various production and prototyping sources and are stored and commissioned by logistics. Several phases of this complex process share the same context: Production timelines for assemblies and parts for each chassis-engine package define which drag coefficients or drag coefficient contributions shall be determined.

The pace of innovations in battery development is revolutionizing the landscape and opportunities for energy storage applications leading to a stronger market segmentation enabling a better suitability to fulfill specific application requirements. For automotive applications, several approaches to increase energy densities, to improve fast charging performance, and to reduce cost on a pack level are considered. Among them, a promising example is the direct integration of battery cells into the battery pack (Cell-to-pack; CTP) or vehicle (Cell-to-chassis, CTC) to increase energy densities and to reduce costs, as already commercialized by Tesla, CATL and others. In the pack development, especially Asian players are one of the frontrunners, where e.g., hybrid cell battery systems with a mixture of cells with different cathode chemistries as introduced by NIO, are experiencing a high interest of the market.

EU legislation provides for only local CO2 emission-free vehicles to be allowed in individual passenger transport by 2035. In addition, the directive provides for fuels from renewable sources, i.e. defossilised fuels. This development leads to three possible energy sources or forms of energy for use in individual transport. The first possibility is charging with electricity generated from renewable sources, the second possibility is hydrogen generated from renewable sources or blue production path. The third possibility is the use of renewable fuels, also called e-fuels. These fuels are produced from atmospheric CO2 and renewable hydrogen. Possible processes for this are, for example, methanol or Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. The production of these fuels is very energy-intensive and large amounts of renewable electricity are needed.

This title includes the technical papers developed for the 2023 Stapp Car Crash Conference, the premier forum for the presentation of research in impact biomechanics, human injury tolerance, and related fields, advancing the knowledge of land-vehicle crash injury protection. The conference provides an opportunity to participate in open discussion about the causes and mechanisms of injury, experimental methods and tools for use in impact biomechanics research, and the development of new concepts for reducing injuries and fatalities in automobile crashes.

The aerospace industry is focused on fostering a positive safety culture and competency in Human Factors considerations supports competencies crucial to an organization's quality management and safety. Many standards include requirements for embedding Human Factors within the aerospace manufacturing and supply chains. This course introduces the skills and knowledge supporting compliance and capability in human performance. This course provides an overview of Human Factors management in aviation and clarifies what individuals and companies can do to optimize the effects of Human Factors within their organization.

The issue of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the transportation sector is widely acknowledged. Recent years have witnessed a push towards the electrification of cars, with many considering it the optimal solution to address this problem. However, the substantial battery packs utilized in electric vehicles contribute to a considerable embedded ecological footprint. Research has highlighted that, depending on the vehicle's size, tens or even hundreds of thousands of kilometers are required to offset this environmental burden. Human-powered vehicles (HPVs), thanks to their smaller size, are inherently much cleaner means of transportation, yet their limited speed impedes widespread adoption for mid-range and long-range trips, favoring cars, especially in rural areas. This paper addresses the challenge of HPV speed, limited by their low input power and non-optimal distribution of the resistive forces.

Expansion chamber mufflers are commonly applied to reduce noise in HVAC. Dissipative materials, such as microperforated plates (MPPs), are often applied to achieve a more broadband mitigation effect. Such mufflers are typically characterized in the frequency domain, assuming time-harmonic excitation. From a computational point of view, transient analyses are more challenging. A transformation of the equivalent fluid model or impedance boundary conditions into the time domain induces convolution integrals. We apply the recently proposed finite element formulation of a time domain equivalent fluid (TDEF) model to simulate the transient response of dissipative acoustic media to arbitrary unsteady excitation. As most time domain approaches, the formulation relies on approximating the frequency-dependent equivalent fluid parameters by a sum of rational functions composed of real-valued or complex-conjugated poles.

By building on mature internal combustion engine (ICE) hardware combined with dedicated hydrogen (H2) technology, the H2-ICE has excellent potential to accelerate CO2 reduction. H2-ICE concepts can therefore contribute to realizing the climate targets in an acceptable timeframe. In the landscape of H2-ICE combustion concepts, High Pressure Direct Injection (HPDI™) is an attractive option considering its high thermal efficiency, wide load range and its applicability to on-road as well as off-road heavy-duty equipment. Still, H2-HPDI is characterized by diffusion combustion, giving rise to significant NOx emissions. In this paper, the potential of H2-HPDI toward compliance with future emissions legislation is explored on a 1.8L single-cylinder research engine. With tests on multiple load-speed points, Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) was shown to be an effective measure for reducing engine-out NOx, although at the cost of a few efficiency points.

This study explores the feasibility of using a sustainable lignin-based fuel, consisting of 44 % lignin, 50 % ethanol, and 6 % water, in conventional compression ignition (CI) marine engines. Through experimental evaluations on a modified small-bore CI engine, we identified the primary challenges associated with lignin-based fuel, including engine startup and shutdown issues due to solvent evaporation and lignin solidification inside the fuel system, and deposit formation on cylinder walls leading to piston ring seizure. To address these issues, we developed a fuel switching system transitioning from lignin-based fuel to cleaning fuel with 85 vol% of acetone, 10 vol% of water and 5 vol% of ignition improving additive, effectively preventing system clogs.

In the effort to achieve the goal of a climate-neutral transportation system, the use of hydrogen and other synthetic fuels plays a key role. As battery electric vehicles become more widespread, e-fuels could be used to defossilize the hard-to-electrify transportation sectors and to store energy produced from renewable and non-continuous energy sources. Among e-fuels, hydrogen and ammonia are very attractive because they are carbon-neutral and their oxidation does not lead to any CO2 emissions. Furthermore, hydrogen/ammonia mixtures overcome the issues that arise as each of the two fuels is separately used. In the automotive sector, the use of either hydrogen, ammonia or their blends require a characterization of such mixtures under engine-like conditions, that is, at high pressures and temperatures. The aim of this work is to evaluate the Laminar Flame Speed (LFS) of hydrogen/ammonia mixtures by varying the thermodynamic conditions and the molar composition of the reactants.

Reductions in powertrain noise have led to an increased proportion of road noise, prompting various studies aimed at mitigating it. Road excitation primarily traverses through the vehicle suspension system, necessitating careful optimization of the characteristics of bushings at connection points. However, optimizing at the vehicle assembly stage is both time-consuming and costly. Therefore, it is essential to proceed with optimization at the subsystem level using appropriate objective functions. In this study, the blocked force and energy-based index derived from complex power were used to optimize the NVH performance. Calculating the complex power in each bushing enables computing the power flow, thereby providing a basis for evaluating the NVH performance. Through stiffness injection, the frequency response functions (FRF) of the system can be predicted according to arbitrary changes in the bushing stiffness.

Gas bearings are an effective solution to high-speed rotor applications for its contamination free, reduced maintenance and higher reliability. However, low viscosity of gas leads to lower dynamic stiffness and damping characteristics resulting in low load carrying capacity and instability at higher speeds. Gas bearings can be enhanced by adding a foil structure commonly known as gas foil bearings (GFBs), whose dynamic stiffness can be tailored by modifying the geometry and the material properties resulting in better stability and higher load carrying capacity. A detailed study is required to assess the performance of high-speed rotor systems supported on GFBs, therefore in this study a bump type GFB is analyzed for its static and dynamic characteristics. The static characteristics are obtained by solving the non-linear Reynolds equation through an iterative procedure.