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With introduction of CAFÉ norms in India from Apr’17, the manufacturer of all M1 Category vehicles (not exceeding 3,500kg GVW) has to ascertain that they comply with Annual Corporate Average CO2 Target as defined in AIS-137 regulation which is becoming stricter in future. Hence CO2 emissions are becoming one of the major focus parameters during vehicle development. The assessment of CAFÉ compliance involves multiple steps. Firstly, test agency provides Type Approval and Conformity of Production emission test reports to the Designated Agency. Accordingly, every manufacturer submits Fuel consumption report/Passbook to the Designated Agency on annual basis. After verification of all data, the Designated Agency issues a status of compliance to the Manufacturer. Such detailed assessment protocol presents a huge challenge for any manufacturer in maintaining the consistency/accuracy of CO2 produced by manufactured vehicles within the Type Approved Limit.

The field of Passive Safety is of primary focus for the automobile manufacturers. Number of changes has been incorporated in today’s passenger car, which not only protects its occupants but also other road users. This revolutionary change in technology calls for new development in evaluation procedures. Crash testing of vehicles is one such massive field of research. The nature and cost of these tests increases the need for better measurement techniques. High speed cameras are often used in the crash tests and image processing is done to study the deformation characteristics, dummy kinematics and steering wheel displacements. This paper discusses the effect of key factors like Camera positioning and 2D Calibration on the analysis of high speed images. The paper also discusses the experimental evaluation carried out to validate the same.

Energy dissipation testing of vehicle's interior fitments is done at various defined locations as per the regulation ECE R21. Interior fitting impact tests became mandatory in April 2006 for models manufactured from April 2006 and April 2007 for models being manufactured before April 2006 in India. With the implementation of stringent safety regulations in India, it is mandatory that every manufacturer tests and certifies their product to comply with the automotive safety standards. Automotive industry has a challenging task of designing and evaluating the components that play a vital role in the event of an unfortunate accident. In this context, a number of tests on safety belt anchorages, seat anchorages and interior fittings such as instrument panel, steering wheel etc., are conducted.

Vehicle Hood being the face of a passenger car poses the challenge to meet the regulatory and aesthetic requirements. Urge to make a saleable product makes aesthetics a primary condition. This eventually makes the role of structure optimization much more important. Pedestrian protection- a recent development in the Indian automotive industry, known for dynamics of cost competitive cars, has posed the challenge to make passenger cars meeting the regulation at minimal cost. The paper demonstrates structure optimization of hood and design of peripheral parts for meeting pedestrian protection performance keeping the focus on low cost of ownership. The paper discusses development of an in-house methodology for meeting Headform compliance of a flagship model of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., providing detailed analysis of the procedure followed from introduction stage of regulatory requirement in the project to final validation of the engineering intent.

With steep increase in fuel prices, there is a strong need for development of better engines with improved performance and emissions. This needs a dedicated effort on engine hardware optimization for lower CO2 levels. Exhaust muffler design is trade-off between noise, backpressure and size/weight. With increase in exhaust muffler volume and simplification of structure there is a corresponding drop observed in exhaust pressures. Study of such a phenomenon would give an insight to benefits achieved based on changes in muffler volumes/structure. This in a way leads to engine improvement. In this paper it has been shown how exhaust muffler characteristics (size and internal construction) impacts engine performance.

Control Cables are used in automobiles to transfer loads and motions as intended and required by the driver. These cables are supported at multiple points by clamps, which are mounted at suitable locations. The Clutch-cable is one of the cables routed through clamps mounted on the engine and the vehicle-chassis. During the vehicle’s travel on the rough road, the powertrain, supported by flexible mounts, tends to swivel, generating relative motion with respect to the chassis. As one end of the clutch-cable is mounted on the chassis and other on the vibrating engine, this relative movement contributes to the additional forces on the clamps. These forces, sometimes, lead to the clamp’s failure. Thus, the knowledge of load behavior is important for failure investigation and further optimization of the clamp design. The failure of the engine-mounted clutch-cable-clamp was observed in the vehicle testing on the rough road.

With the increasing competition in the automotive industry, customer experience & satisfaction is at the top of every organization's goals. The customers have evolved & NVH refinement has become the parameter for their decision making in buying a car. The major source of rumble noise in a vehicle is the induced vibrations due to combustion forces in an IC engine. These vibrations are then transferred to the vehicle body through engine mounts. Hence engine mounts play a key role in defining the NVH & the ride performance of any vehicle. However, it is infeasible to validate every mount design through the physical test as it will be both costly & time-consuming. But multiple design iterations can be verified by the CAE approach quite effectively. This paper focuses on the novel CAE approach to evaluate the mount vibrations due to engine dynamics. The process involves preparing a FEA model of the complete Powertrain system.

Fun to drive, pick-up of vehicle, high acceleration feeling of vehicle, time to reach max velocities are some parameters prevailing in the passenger vehicle market. In addition to focusing on information about fuel economy declared by manufacturer, the customer also has drivability related criteria in his mind. Although drivability is subjective, it can be judged by using various parameters like maximum speed, pick-up feeling, overtaking acceleration, time to reach 0 – 100 km/h or 0 – 60 km/h, etc. While comparing two vehicles of the same segment, one vehicle may perform better on some of the parameters while losses on others. To decide overall drive performance of a vehicle based on various measured performance related parameters, a methodology is defined. This will help to understand the overall performance of a vehicle holistically and to compare its performance with other vehicles in a better way.

Hood is the closure provided in the frontal portion of the vehicle for covering the engine room. Any component disposed in the frontal portion of the vehicle becomes important because of aesthetic as well as regulatory requirements. Introduction of new regulations like pedestrian protection brings new challenges for the original equipment manufacturers and the governing authorities. Introduction of Pedestrian Protection regulation, a recent development in the automotive industry, has thrown several questions in front of original equipment manufacturers. This work explains the procedure to address such question and the learning associated with it.