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Shift quality of a manual transmission is a critical characteristic that requires utmost care while structuring the transmission. Shift quality is affected by many factors viz. synchronizer design, shifter design, gear design, transmission oil selection etc. This paper presents a correlation between stiffness of the shift fork in manual transmission with the gear shift quality using a gear shift quality assessment setup. Stiffness of shifter fork is optimized using contact pattern analysis and stiffness analysis on MSC Nastran. All the subsystem (i.e. synchronizer and the shift system component) are constrained to optimize the shift fork stiffness. A-5-speed manual transmission is used as an example to illustrate the same. A direct correlation of gear shift fork stiffness with the shift force experienced by the driver is established. The shift system was modeled in the UG NX 6.0 software to collate the synchronization force, shift system gap etc with the constraint on the shift fork.

This paper discusses the development of an all speed governed diesel-natural gas dual fuel engine for agricultural farm tractor. A 45 hp, 2.9 liters diesel-natural gas dual fuel engine with a novel closed loop secondary fuel injection system was developed. A frugal approach without any modification of the base mechanical diesel fuel injection system was followed. This approach helped to minimize the cost impact, while meeting performance and emissions at par with neat diesel operation. Additional cost on gas injection system is redeemed by cost savings on diesel fuel. The dual fuel technology developed by Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., substitutes on an average approximately 40% of diesel with compressed natural gas, meeting the TREM III A emission norms for dual fuel while meeting all application requirements. The governing performance of the tractor was found to be superior than base diesel tractor.

Rotavator is an active tillage implement for breaking the Soil and for the preparation of seed bed for cultivation. The Farmers are currently facing problem due to usage of sub optimal speed of Rotavator which results in more fuel consumption, takes more time for completion of operation. Also, the Current Rental models work on Tractor + Implement as rental combination and customer not able to rent Rotavator as a standalone implement due to non-availability of Tracking information such as hours of utilization on Rotavator. Farmers not able to maintain the service periodicity, if oil change not done in prescribed duration then it may result in improper maintenance and breakdown of the Rotavator. To overcome these problems a smart Rotavator developed consists of an electronic unit fitted on the Rotavator shaft to measure the speed of the shaft rotation and in turn convert to Rotavator speed and also able to convert into Hours of usage based on the starting and stopping of the rotavator.

Being a safety critical aggregate, every aspect of brake system is considered significant in vehicles operations. Along with optimum performance of brake system in terms of deceleration generation, brake pedal feel or brake feel is considered as one of the key elements while evaluating brake system of vehicles. There are many factors such as liner and drum condition, road surface, friction between linkages which impress the pedal feel. Out of these, in this paper we will be discussing the factors which influence the brake pedal feel in relation to the driver comfort and confidence building. Under optimum braking condition, brake operation must be completed with pedal effort not very less or not very high, brake pedal feel must be firm throughout the operation, in such a way that it will not create fatigue and at the same time it will give enough confidence to the driver while operating with acceptable travel.

In today’s automobile industry where BS6 emission is posing a high challenge for aggregate development, cost control and with limited timeline. The main target is to provide the cooling system to have less impact on the in terms of cost, weight and to meet the challenging engineering requirement. Thus, the frugal engineering comes into the picture. This paper shows the application of thermosyphon principle for UDM injector cooling thereby reducing the rotation parts and power consumption such as an electric pump. Thermosyphon is a method of passive heat exchange and is based on natural convection, which circulates a fluid without the necessity of a mechanical or electric pump. The natural convection of the liquid commences when heat transfer to the liquid gives rise to a temperature difference from one side of the loop to the other.

As the FTP-75 drive cycle does not have a prescribed gear shift pattern, automotive OEMs have the flexibility to design. Conventionally, gear shift pattern was formulated based on trial and error method, typically with 10 to 12 iterations on chassis dynamometer. It was a time consuming (i.e. ~ 3 to 4 months) and expensive process. This approach led to declaring poor fuel economy (FE). A simulation procedure was required to generate a gear shift pattern that gives optimal trade-off amongst conflicting objectives (FE, performance and emissions). As a result, a simulation tool was developed in MATLAB to generate an optimum gear shift pattern. Three different SUV/UV models were used as test vehicles in this study. Chassis dyno testing was conducted, and data was collected using the base and optimized gear shift patterns. Dyno test results with optimized gear shift pattern showed FE improvement of ~ 4 to 5% while retaining the NOx margin well above engineering targets.

In the era of fierce competition, launching a defect free product on time would be the key to success. In a modern automobile, the transmission system is designed with utmost care in order to transfer the maximum power from engine to driveline smoothly and efficiently. Optimized design of all the transmission components is necessary in order to meet the power requirement with the least possible weight. This optimization may require gear designs with different internal diameters. The assembly of these gears may not be possible on a solid transmission shaft. To facilitate assembling while retaining optimum design of transmission parts, a separate bush is designed to overcome this limitation. Some bushes may require a flange to restrict any free play of the mounted gear in its axial direction. During complete system level testing of one newly developed manual transmission, bush failure was observed.

Fuel efficiency is critical aspect for commercial vehicles as fuel is major part of operational costs. To complicate scenario further, fuel efficiency testing, unlike in passenger cars is more time consuming and laborious. Thus, to save on development cost and save time in actual testing, simulations plays crucial role. Typically, actual vehicle speed and gear usage is captured using reference vehicle in desired route and used it for simulation of target vehicle. Limitation to this approach is captured duty cycle is specific to powertrain and driver behavior of reference vehicle. Any change in powertrain or vehicle resistance or driver of target vehicle will alter duty cycle and hence duty cycle of reference vehicle is no more valid for simulation assessment. This paper demonstrates approach which uses combination of tools to address this challenge. Simulation approach proposed here have three parts.

The given paper presents the main elements of frictional power loss distribution in an automotive axle for passenger car. For reference two different axles were compared of two different sizes to understand the impact of size and ratio of gear and bearings on power loss characteristics. It was observed that ~50% of total axle power loss is because of pinion head-tail bearing and its seals, which is very significant. Roughly 30% of total power loss is contributed by pinion-ring gear pair and differential bearings and remaining ~20% by wheel end bearing and seals. With this study the automotive companies can take note of the area where they need to focus more to reduce their CO2 emissions to meet the stringent BS6, CAFÉ and RDE emission norms.

Till recently supercharging was the most accepted technique for boost solution in gasoline engines. Recent advents in turbochargers introduced turbocharging technology into gasoline engines. Turbocharging of gasoline engines has helped in powertrains with higher power density and less overall weight. Along with the advantages in performance, new challenges arise, both in terms of thermal management as well as overall acoustic performance of powertrains. The study focuses mainly on NVH aspects of turbocharging of gasoline engines. Compressor surge is a most common phenomenon in turbochargers. As the operating point on the compressor map moves closer to the surge line, the compressor starts to generate noise. The amplitude and frequency of the noise depends on the proximity of the operating point to the surge line. The severity of noise can be reduced by selecting a turbocharger with enough compressor surge margin.

The excitation to a vehicle is from two sources, road excitation and powertrain excitation. Vehicle Suspension is designed to isolate the road excitation coming to passenger cabin. Powertrain mounts play a vital role in isolating the engine excitation. The current study focuses on developing an analytical approach using Low-Fidelity computer programs to design the Powertrain Mount layout and stiffness during the initial stage of product development. Three programs have been developed as a part of this study that satisfy the packaging needs, NVH requirements and static load bearing requirements. The applications are capable of providing the Kinetic Energy Distribution and Static Analysis (Powertrain Enveloping and Mount Durability) for 3-point and 4-point mounting systems and the ideal mount positions and stiffness for 3-point mounting systems.

The braking systems for modern day commercial vehicles with GVWs ranging above 7.5 metric tons use the typical s-cam drum brake system, where pressurized air is the actuating medium. The s-cam drum brake systems are popular today even after the advent and penetration of air disc brake systems, the main reasons being, cost-effectiveness, robustness, satisfactory performance and good component life. However, the brake systems of commercial vehicles (both M and N category) are frequently grappled with NVH issues particularly in the form of brake squeal noise (low frequency and high frequency). The noise with frequency more than 500 Hz can be generally defined as brake squeal. There has been a lot of work done and is being continued, at theoretical level, analytical level and experimental level to tackle with this issue.

One of the major discomforts while driving any medium to heavy commercial vehicle is brake judder. Brake judder can be defined as vibrations felt on steering wheel or brake pedal or cabin floor, when brakes are applied at certain speeds and pressures. The frequencies of this judder lie as high as 100 Hz to as low as 20 Hz. The brake judder is caused by a number of factors, which makes providing a universal solution difficult. Some of the causes are related to part fitment, part quality, material selection, manufacturing process, Design consideration, environmental factors, etc. This paper gives us a brief idea about resolution of judder problem in intermediate commercial vehicle by series of trials and this methodology can be applied in heavy commercial vehicles also. This paper gives reader an insight about step by step root cause analysis of brake judder on actual vehicle and an approach in resolving the judder problem.

S-cam air brake system is provided in almost all commercial vehicles having tonnage above 7.5-ton. In S-Cam brake system, drum to brake lining gap (henceforth referred to as ‘brake lining gap’ or simply ‘gap’ for convenience) range is an important factor which can impact braking behavior during brake application. Different OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) define different brake lining gap ranges between S-cam brake lining and drum. This range depends majorly on the internal mechanism deployed in ASA (Auto Slack Adjuster). When these brake lining gaps start lowering i.e. when they fall in the range of 0 to 0.4 mm, or they become unstable (checked by feeler gauge at inspection window provided on dust cover of S-cam) then it starts impacting brake behavior in the subject vehicles.

Exhaust system is one of the complex automotive systems in terms of performance and strength prediction due to combination of transient mechanical and thermal loads acting on it simultaneously. Traditionally, most of automotive vehicles have exhaust systems with hot end mounted on engine and cold end mounted on chassis or BIW through hangers. A new powertrain mounted exhaust system was developed in-house. This exhaust system underwent validation and evaluation during development phase. Durability concerns were observed on exhaust system in Track test and gear shift durability test. This paper focuses on identifying the root cause of these concerns based on the failures observed during evaluation in Accelerated Durability (ADT) and gear shift durability (GSD) tests. Based on the architecture and packaging space challenges in vehicle, engine is mounted on two mounts and a roll restrictor. Muffler, which has higher inertia, is mounted at higher offset with respect to engine rolling axis.

The present scenario in automobile industry is formed on developing smart vehicles by introducing various feature towards fuel efficient, low emission, weight reduction, and advance safety feature with hybrid and micro-hybrid vehicles. One such feature gaining more popularity is the Belt Driven Starter Generator [1] for its contribution towards fuel efficiency, emission reduction [2], weight reduction and convenient packaging with engine/electrical interface. However this invention puts challenge of integration and increase in loading to various system like power steering pump and crank shaft pulley, as all these systems are interlinked with a common belt. In this interface links we observed the steering pump hub under risk of structural failure due to additional load to support Belt Driven Starter Generator. Failure to identify safe limits of hub load can affect safe vehicle operation [3].

This paper presents a simulation of the stiffness of the shift fork of a manual transmission using contact pattern analysis and optistrut. All the subsystem (i.e. synchronizer and the shift system component) are constrained to optimize the shift fork stiffness. A-5-speed manual transmission is used as an example to illustrate the simulation, co-relation and validation of the optimization of the gear shift fork stiffness. The shift system was modeled in the software to collate the synchronization force, shift system gap etc with the constraint on the shift fork. It is constrained by the synchronizer sleeve and the fork mounting on the gear shift rail. The synchronizer force is then applied on the gear shift fork pads which are translated to the synchronizer sleeve. It has a number of pads which come into contact at different occasion of the synchronization because of the varying stiffness of the fork.

Poor clutch life is a major issue for some light commercial vehicle models. Clutch overheating is the primary cause for clutch failure. Some of the reasons include inappropriate gear selection by the driver, poor low-end dynamic torque availability from an engine, heavy stop and go traffic, vehicle overloading resulting in excessive clutch slippage especially in gradients, riding of the clutch pedal by the customer etc. These situations lead to a high thermal energy dissipation at the clutch, increasing clutch wear and in extreme conditions leading to not only poor shift quality but also eventual clutch failure. Unfortunately, it is not practical to monitor clutch temperature in a production vehicle due to high costs or technical challenges involved. This paper describes 1-D thermal modeling of single plate dry clutch typically used in passenger car/truck and bus applications. The objective of simulation is to estimate the temperature rise on the clutch facing and clutch housing.

This paper describes modified polypropylene copolymer (PPCP) material for thin wall front bumper development (2.5 mm) with integrated grill in automotive application. This compounded PPCP material has optimized flow behavior, tensile strength, modulus, impact strength, and thermal properties to meet the functional requirements. This is a ready to mold material used in injection molding process. Front bumper and grill are functional components with slow speed impact requirement to absorb impact in real world. These parts have precise fitment requirement under sun load condition. Front bumper is also having other critical criteria with respect to vehicle variants such as aesthetic mold-in-color finish as well as painted finish. Grill has air entry performance criteria to ensure cooling efficiency in intercooler compartment.

This paper presents the detailed design of a Single Rail Internal Gear Shift System for a 5-speed manual transmission of a load carrier vehicle. Gear shifting in manual transmissions is achieved by actuating a synchronizer sleeve and engaging it with the required gear. Actuation of synchronizer sleeves is effected by gear shift forks which are supported in the transmission by a rail/shaft. Conventional 5-speed transmissions use Multi Rail Gear shift systems, wherein each of the forks viz. Fork 1-2, Fork3-4 & Fork 5th, for actuating the synchronizer sleeves, are supported by and fixed to individual rails. This paper presents the design of a Single Rail Gear shift system, wherein all the gear shift forks will be supported on a common rail/shaft, thus making the entire system compact and reducing the system weight. The Single Rail, in the proposed design, apart from supporting the three forks, also serves to actuate the Reverse Gear, which is of sliding mesh type in this case.