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This paper employs the motion-mode energy method (MEM) to investigate the effects of a roll-plane hydraulically interconnected suspension (HIS) system on vehicle body-wheel motion-mode energy distribution. A roll-plane HIS system can directly provide stiffness and damping to vehicle roll motion-mode, in addition to spring and shock absorbers in each wheel station. A four degree-of-freedom (DOF) roll-plane half-car model is employed for this study, which contains four body-wheel motion-modes, including body bounce mode, body roll mode, wheel bounce mode and wheel roll mode. For a half-car model, its dynamic energy contained in the relative motions between its body and wheels is a sum of the energy of these four motion-modes. Numerical examples and full-car experiments are used to illustrate the concept of the effects of HIS on motion-mode energy distribution.

Effectively obtaining physical parameters for vehicle dynamic model is the key to successfully performing any computer-based dynamic analysis, control strategy development or optimization. For a spring and lump mass vehicle model, which is a type of vehicle model widely used, its physical parameters include sprung mass, unsprung mass, inertial properties of the sprung mass, stiffness and damping coefficient of suspension and tire, etc. To minimize error, the paper proposes a method to estimate these parameters from vehicle modal parameters which are in turn obtained through full-car dynamic testing. To verify its effectiveness, a visual vehicle with a set of given parameters, build in the Adams(Automatic Dynamic Analysis of Mechanical Systems)/Car environment, is used to perform the dynamic testing and provide the testing data for the parameter estimation.

With the development of advanced ABE fermentation technology, the volumetric percentage of acetone, butanol and ethanol in the bio-solvents can be precisely controlled. To seek for an optimized volumetric ratio for ABE-diesel blends, the previous work in our team has experimentally investigated and analyzed the combustion features of ABE-diesel blends with different volumetric ratio (A: B: E: 6:3:1; 3:6:1; 0:10:0, vol. %) in a constant volume chamber. It was found that an increased amount of acetone would lead to a significant advancement of combustion phasing whereas butanol would compensate the advancing effect. Both spray dynamic and chemistry reaction dynamic are of great importance in explaining the unique combustion characteristic of ABE-diesel blend. In this study, a semi-detailed chemical mechanism is constructed and used to model ABE-diesel spray combustion in a constant volume chamber.

This paper intends to present a novel optimal trajectory planning method for obstacle avoidance on highways. Firstly, a mapping from the road Cartesian coordinate system to the road Frenet-based coordinate system is built, and the path lateral offset in the road Frenet-based coordinate system is represented by a function of quintic polynomial respecting the traveled distance along the road centerline. With different terminal conditions regarding its position, heading and curvature of the endpoint, and together with initial conditions of the starting point, the path planner generates a bunch of candidate paths via solving nonlinear equation sets numerically. A path selecting mechanism is further built which considers a normalized weighted sum of the path length, curvature, consistency with the previous path, as well as the road hazard risk.

Suspension system dynamics can be obtained by various methods and vehicle design has gained great advantages over the dynamics analysis. By employing the new Udwadia-Kalaba equation, we endeavor some attempts on its application to dynamic modeling of vehicle suspension systems. The modeling approach first segments the suspension system into several component subsystems with kinematic constraints at the segment points released. The equations of motion of the unconstrained subsystems are thus easily obtained. Then by applying the second order constraints, the suspension system dynamics is then obtained. The equations are of closed-form. Having the equations obtained, we then show its application on dynamical load analysis. The solutions for the dynamical loads at interested hard points are obtained. We use the double wishbone suspension to show the systematic approach is easy handling.

In vehicles equipped with conventional Electric Power Steering (EPS) systems, the steering effort felt by the driver can be unreasonably low when driving on slippery roads. This may lead inexperienced drivers to steer more than what is required in a turn and risk losing control of the vehicle. Thus, it is sensible for tire-road friction to be accounted for in the design of future EPS systems. This paper describes the design of an auxiliary EPS controller that manipulates torque delivery of current EPS systems by supplying its motor with a compensation current controlled by a fuzzy logic algorithm that considers tire-road friction among other factors. Moreover, a steering system model, a nonlinear vehicle dynamics model and a Dugoff tire model are developed in MATLAB/Simulink. Physical testing is conducted to validate the virtual model and confirm that steering torque decreases considerably on low friction roads.

A multidimensional numerical simulation method was developed to analyze air/fuel premixing, stratified combustion and NOx emission formation in a gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine. Firstly, many submodels were integrated into one Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code: ICFD-CN, such as Sarre nozzle flow, Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) dynamic jet model, Taylor-Analogy Breakup (TAB) model, Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) droplet breakup model, Lefebvre fuel vaporization model, Liu droplet drag & distortion model, Gosman turbulence & droplet dispersion model, O'rourke wall film model, O'rourke and Bracco droplet impinging & coalescence model, Stanton spray/wall impinging model, the Discrete Particle Ignition Kernel(DPIK)ignition model, the single step combustion and the patulous Zeldovich model for NOx generation mechanism. The integrated CFD code was then calibrated against experimental data in a gasoline direct injection engine for several engine operating conditions.

A hybrid approach utilizing the measured intake/exhaust port pressure traces and gas dynamics simulation was developed to process the instant fresh charge and RGF (Residual Gas Fraction) trapped in cylinder. The real time RGF, pumping losses and indicated thermal efficiency of an automotive gasoline engine under vehicle driving conditions are analyzed, cycle by cycle, and associated to the engine operating parameters including engine load, speed, VVT positions, manifold pressure and temperatures, as well as spark timing. In this way the inter-relationship among those parameters are established. The derived relationship could be used to determine the in-cylinder process for more accurate prediction of engine performance at the stage of concept simulation study, and applied to narrow the range of parameter tests in the engine calibration stage.

This paper introduces a vehicle model in CarSim, and replaces a portion of its standard suspension system with an HIS model built in an external software to implement co-simulations. The maneuver we employ to characterize the HIS vehicle is a constant radius method, i.e. observing the vehicle’s steering wheel angle by fixing its cornering radius and gradually increasing its longitudinal speed. The principles of the influence of HIS systems on cornering mainly focus on two factors: lateral load transfer and roll steer effect. The concept of the front lateral load transfer occupancy ratio (FLTOR) is proposed to evaluate the proportions of lateral load transfer at front and rear axles. The relationship between toe and suspension compression is dismissed firstly to demonstrate the effects of lateral load transfer and then introduced to illustrate the effects of roll motion on cornering.

Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) are considered as the most commercial prospects new energy vehicles. Most HEVs have adopted Atkinson cycle engine as the main drive power. Atkinson cycle engine uses late intake valve closing (LIVC) to reduce pumping losses and compression work in part load operation. It can transform more heat energy to mechanical energy, improve engine thermal efficiency and decrease fuel consumption. In this paper, the investigations of Atkinson cycle converted from conventional Otto cycle gasoline engine have been carried out. First of all, high geometry compression ratio (CR) has been optimized through piston redesign from 10.5 to 13 in order to overcome the intrinsic drawback of Atkinson cycle in that combustion performance deteriorates due to the decline in the effective CR. Then, both intake and exhaust cam profile have been redesigned to meet the requirements of Atkinson cycle engine.

Uncertainties present a large concern in actual vehicle motion and have a large effect on vehicle system control. We attempt a new robust control design approach for braking/driving force distribution and active front steering of vehicle system with uncertain parameters. The braking/driving force distribution control is equivalently studied as the integral direct yaw moment control. Then the control design is carried out by using a state-space vehicle model with embedded fuzzy uncertainties. By taking the compensated front wheel steering angle and the direct yaw moment as the control inputs, a feedback control that aims to compensate the system uncertainty is proposed. In a quite different angle, we employ fuzzy descriptions of the uncertain parameters. The controlled system performance is deterministic, and the control is not if-then rules-based. Fuzzy descriptions of the uncertain parameters are used to find an optimal control gain.

The vibration and instability experienced in an ambulance can lead to secondary injury to a patient and discourage a paramedic from emergency care. This paper presents a hydraulically interconnected suspension (HIS) system which can achieve enhanced cooperative control of roll, pitch and bounce motion modes to improve the ambulance's ride comfort and handling performance. A lumped-mass model integrated with a mechanical and hydraulic coupled system is developed by using free-body diagram and transfer matrix methods. The mechanical-fluid boundary condition in the double-acting cylinders is modelled as an external force on the mechanical system and a moving boundary on the fluid system. A special modal analysis method is employed to reveal the vibration characteristics of the ambulance with the HIS.

With its advantages on cost and performance, the integrated exhaust manifold (casting with the turbine) is being used on more vehicles by auto makers. Generally, when compared with the divided exhaust manifold, the integrated exhaust manifold stands for higher vibratory excitation from gas dynamics. In this paper, the gas dynamics excitation has been computed through the GD (gas dynamics) software GT-Power which calculates the exhaust pipe surface pressure, and CFD code Star-CCM+ which calculates the turbine blade force. And the response of manifold has been solved under this excitation. On the other hand, the mechanical excitation has been computed through the MBD (multi-body dynamics) platform AVL-Excite-PU, and the responses under the gas excitation plus the mechanical load have been studied in order to analyze the effects of the fluid excitation on an integrated manifold.

The combination of passive and active vehicle safety technologies can effectively improve vehicle safety. Most of them predict vehicle crashes using radar or video, but they can't be applied extensively currently due to the high cost. Another collision forecasting method is more economic which is based on the driver behavior and vehicle status, such as the acceleration, angular velocity of the brake pedal and so on. However, the acceleration and angular velocity of the brake pedal will change with the driver and the vehicle type. In order to study the effect of different drivers and vehicle types on the braking acceleration and angular velocity of the brake pedal, six volunteers were asked to drive five vehicles for simulating the working conditions of emergency braking, normal braking, inching braking and passing barricades under different velocities. All the tests were conducted on asphalt road, and comprehensive experimental design was used to arrange tests.

Hydraulic suspension systems with different interconnected configurations can decouple suspension mode and improve performance of a particular mode. In this paper, two types of interconnected suspensions are compared for off-road vehicle trafficability. Traditionally, anti-roll bar, a mechanically interconnected suspension system, connecting left and right suspension, decouples roll mode from the bounce mode and results in a stiff roll mode and a soft bounce mode, which is desired. However, anti-roll bars fail to connect the front wheel motions with the rear wheels', thus the wheels' motions in the warp mode are affected by anti-roll bars and it results an undesired stiffened warp mode. A stiffened warp mode limits the wheel-ground contact and may cause one wheel lift up especially during off-road drive. In contrast with anti-roll bars, two types of hydraulic suspensions which interconnect four wheels (for two-axis vehicles) can further decouple articulation mode from other modes.

In the present study, we developed a reduced chemical reaction mechanism consisted of n-heptane and toluene as surrogate fuel species for diesel engine combustion simulation. The LLNL detailed chemical kinetic mechanism for n-heptane was chosen as the base mechanism. A multi-technique reduction methodology was applied, which included directed relation graph with error propagation and sensitivity analysis (DRGEPSA), non-essential reaction elimination, reaction pathway analysis, sensitivity analysis, and reaction rate adjustment. In a similar fashion, a reduced toluene mechanism was also developed. The reduced n-heptane and toluene mechanisms were then combined to form a diesel surrogate mechanism, which consisted of 158 species and 468 reactions. Extensive validations were conducted for the present mechanism with experimental ignition delay in shock tubes and laminar flame speeds under various pressures, temperatures and equivalence ratios related to engine conditions.

A multi-step acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) phenomenological soot model was proposed and implemented into KIVA-3V Release 2 code. Experiments were conducted in an optical constant volume combustion chamber to investigate the combustion and soot emission characteristics under the conditions of 1000 K initial temperature with various oxygen concentrations (21%, 16%, 11%). Multi-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were conducted in conjunction under the same operation conditions. The predicted soot mass traces showed good agreement with experimental data. As ambient oxygen decreased from 21% to 11%, ignition delay retarded and the distribution of temperature became more homogenous. Compared to 21% ambient oxygen, the peak value of total soot mass at 16% oxygen concentration was higher due to the suppressed soot oxidation mechanism.

In this paper, a passive anti-pitch anti-roll hydraulically interconnected suspension is proposed for compromising the control between the pitch and roll mode of the sprung mass. It has the advantage in improving the directional stability and handling quality of vehicles during steering and braking manoeuvres. Frequency domain analysis of a 7-DOF full-car model with the proposed system is presented. The modeling of mechanical subsystem is established based on the Newton's second law. Then the mechanical-hydraulic system boundary conditions are developed by incorporating the hydraulic strut forces into the mechanical subsystem as externally applied forces. The hydraulic subsystem is modelled by using the impedance method, and each circuit are determined by the transfer matrix method. And then the modal analysis method is employed to perform the vibration analysis between the vehicle with the conventional suspension and the proposed HIS.

Air spring due to its superior ride comfort performance has been widely used in distance passenger transporting vehicles. Since the requirements for ride comfort and handling performance are contradict to each other, handling performance and even roll stability are sacrificed to some extent to obtain good ride comfort. Due to the complex terrain and limited manufacturing level, in the past several years, bus rollover accidents with serious casualties have been reported frequently and bus safety has attracted more and more attention from bus manufacturers in China. On one hand the bus standards have to be raised, and on the other hand, novel solutions which can effectively improve the roll stability of air spring bus are needed to replace the inadequacy of anti-roll bars.

Electromagnetic suspension systems have increasingly gained widespread attention due to their superiority in improving ride comfort while providing fast response, excellent controllability and high mechanical efficiency, but their applications are limited due to the accuracy of the underlying control actuation tracking. For addressing this problem, this study presents a novel hierarchical control strategy for an electromagnetic active suspension (EMAS) system equipped with an electromagnetic actuator (EMA) structure. The structure of the EMA device and the working principle of the motion conversion model are introduced in detail first, and the motion conversion equation is derived based on the force-torque relationship. Based on this, a linear quadratic regulator (LQR) control method is proposed to be applied to a half-vehicle suspension system to improve the vibration isolation performance of the vehicle and ensure the ride comfort.