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In the development of an FAW SUV, one of the goals is to achieve a state of the art drag level. In order to achieve such an aggressive target, feedback from aerodynamics has to be included in the early stage of the design decision process. The aerodynamic performance evaluation and improvement is mostly based on CFD simulation in combination with some wind tunnel testing for verification of the simulation results. As a first step in this process, a fully detailed simulation model is built. The styling surface is combined with engine room and underbody detailed geometry from a similar size existing vehicle. From a detailed analysis of the flow field potential areas for improvement are identified and five design parameters for modifying overall shape features of the upper body are derived. In a second step, a response surface method involving design of experiments and adaptive sampling techniques are applied for characterizing the effects of the design changes.

A twist beam rear suspension system is modeled, analyzed and optimized in this paper. An ADAMS model is established based on the REC (Rigid-Elastic Coupling) Theory, which is verified by FEM (Finite Element Method) approach, the effects of the geometric parameters on the twist beam suspension performance are investigated. In order to increase the calculation efficiency and improve the simulation accuracy, a neural network model and NSGA II (Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II) are adopted to conduct a multi-objective optimization on a twist beam rear suspension system.

A low frequency vibration issue around 3.2 Hz occurs during a commercial heavy truck program development process, and it is linked to extremely uncomfortable driving and riding experiences. This work focuses on an analytical effort to resolve the issue by first building a full vehicle MBS (multi-body-system) model, and then carrying out vibration response analyses. The model validation is performed by using full vehicle testing in terms of structural modes and frequency response characteristics. In order to resolve the issue which is excited by tire non-uniformity, the influence of the cab suspension, frame modes, front leaf spring system and rear tandem suspension is analyzed. The root cause of the issue is found to be the poor isolation of the rear tandem suspension system. The analytical optimization effort establishes the resolution measure for the issue.

In order to improve the performance of low temperature combustion of diesel engines to achieve ultra-low emissions and load condition expansions, exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) stratification in the cylinder was proposed to further intensify local EGR concentration and reduce the amount of EGR to acquire high average oxygen concentration within cylinder. In this study, the intake/exhaust port and combustion chamber models were explored by CFD software on a four-valve HD diesel engine, and fresh air and EGR respectively replaced by O2 and CO2 were introduced with division and timing intake strategies during the intake process for stratification optimization.

A challenge for the aerodynamic optimization of trucks is the limited availability of wind tunnels for testing full scale trucks. FAW wants to introduce a development process which is mainly based on CFD simulation in combination with some limited amount of wind tunnel testing. While maturity of CFD simulation for truck aerodynamics has been demonstrated in recent years, a complete validation is still required before committing to a particular process. A 70% scale model is built for testing in the Shanghai Automotive Wind Tunnel Center (SAWTC). Drag and surface pressures are measured for providing a good basis for comparison to the simulation results. The simulations are performed for the truck in the open road driving condition as well as in an initial digital model of the aerodynamic wind tunnel of SAWTC. A full size truck is also simulated in the open road driving condition to understand the scaling effect.

Trucks can carry heavy load and when applying the brakes during for example a mountain downhill or for an abrupt stop, the brake temperatures can rise significantly. Elevated temperatures in the drum brake region can reduce the braking efficiency or can even cause the brake system to fail, catch fire or even break. It therefore needs to be designed such to be able to transfer the heat out of its system by convection, conduction and/or radiation. All three heat transfer modes play an important role since the drum brakes of trucks are not much exposed to external airflow, a significant difference from disk brakes of passenger cars analyzed in previous studies. This makes it a complex heat transfer problem which is not easy to understand. Numerical methods provide insight by visualization of the different heat transfer modes. Presented is a numerical method that simulates the transient heat transfer of a truck drum brake system cooldown at constant driving speed.

The implementation of an advanced process for the aerodynamic development of cab-over type heavy trucks at China FAW Group Corporation (FAW) requires a rigorous validation of the tools employed in this process. The final objective of the aerodynamic optimization of a heavy truck is the reduction of the fuel consumption. The aerodynamic drag of a heavy truck contributes up to 50% of the overall resistance and thus fuel consumption. An accurate prediction of the aerodynamic drag under real world driving conditions is therefore very important. Tools used for the aerodynamic development of heavy trucks include Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), wind tunnels and track and road testing methods. CFD and wind tunnels are of particular importance in the early phase development.

This work carries out complex modal analyses and optimizations to resolve an 1800 Hz front brake squeal issue encountered in a vehicle program development phase. The stability theory of complex modes for brake squeal simulation is briefly explained. A brake system finite element model is constructed, and the model is validated by the measurement in accordance with the SAE 2521 procedure. The key parameters for evaluating the stability of the brake system complex modes are determined. The modal contributions of relevant components to unstable modes are analyzed and ranked. Finally, in order to resolve the squeal issue, the design improvements of rotor, caliper and pad are proposed and numerical simulations are carried out. The obtained results demonstrate that the optimized rotor and pad design can alleviate the squeal issue significantly while the optimized clipper design could essentially eliminate the squeal issue.