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Polyvinyl butyral (PVB) film and SentryGlas® Plus (SGP) film have been widely used in automotive windshield and architecture curtain serving as protective interlayer materials. Viscoelasticity is the unique property of such film materials, which can contribute to improving impact resistance and energy absorbing characteristics of laminated glass. In this study, the uniaxial tensile creep and stress relaxation tests are conducted to investigate the viscoelasticity of PVB and SGP films used in laminated glass. Firstly, tensile creep and stress relaxation tests of PVB film (0.76mm) and SGP film with three thickness (0.89mm, 1.14mm and 1.52mm) are conducted using Instron universal testing machine to obtain creep and stress relaxation curves. Afterwards, both viscoelastic models (Burgers model, Maxwell-Weichert model) and empirical equations (Findley power law, Kohlrausch equation) are applied to simulate the creep and stress relaxation results.

As mechanical damage induced thermal runaway of lithium-ion batteries has become one of the research hotspots, it is quite crucial to understand the mechanical behavior of component materials of lithium battery. This study focuses on the mechanical performance of separators and electrodes under different loading conditions and the error sources analysis for test results. Uniaxial tensile tests were conducted under both quasi-static and dynamic loading conditions. The strain was acquired through the combination of high speed camera and digital image correlation (DIC) method while the force was obtained with a customized load cell. Noticeable anisotropy and strain rate effect were observed for separators. The fracture mode of separators is highly correlated to the microscopic fiber orientation. To demonstrate the correlation microscopic images of separator material were obtained through SEM to match the facture edges of tensile tests at different loading directions.

Combustion visualizations were carried out in a constant volume vessel to study the partially premixed combustion of a gasoline-like fuel using high speed imaging. The test fuel (G80H20) is composed by volume 80% commercial gasoline and 20% n-heptane. The effects of ambient gas composition, ambient temperature and injection pressure on G80H20 combustion characteristics were analyzed. Meanwhile, a comparison of the EGR effect on combustion process between G80H20 and diesel was made. Four ambient gas conditions that represent the in-cylinder gas compositions of a heavy-duty diesel engine with EGR ratios of 0%, 20%, 40% and 60% were used to simulate EGR conditions. Variables also include two ambient temperature (910K and 870K) and two injection pressure (20 MPa and 50 MPa) conditions.

A hydraulic chamber is embedded in serial with the accumulator of a normal mono-tube magnetorheological fluid damper (MRFD). The damper stiffness can be adjusted by changing the accumulator volume with the hydraulic chamber. The hydraulic chamber is connected to an electric pump and controlled by the braking-by-wire (BBW) system. A modified bi-viscosity magnetorheological fluid (MRF) model that explicitly includes the parameter of control current is proposed. A dynamic model of this hydraulic MRFD is subsequently set up based on the MRF model. Experiments are conducted to validate the model and simulations are carried out to study the influences of accumulator volume on the external performances. Results show that the hydraulic chamber is able to provide rapid variations of the external force through accumulator volume changes.

Dieseline combustion as a concept combines the advantages of gasoline and diesel by offline or online blending the two fuels. Dieseline has become an attractive new compression ignition combustion concept in recent years and furthermore an approach to a full-boiling-range fuel. High speed imaging with near-parallel backlit light was used to investigate the spray characteristics of dieseline and pure fuels with a common rail diesel injection system in a constant volume vessel. The results were acquired at different blend ratios, and at different temperatures and back pressures at an injection pressure of 100MPa. The penetrations and the evaporation states were compared with those of gasoline and diesel. The spray profile was analyzed in both area and shape with statistical methods. The effect of gasoline percentage on the evaporation in the fuel spray was evaluated.

Road test simulation on test rig is widely used in the automobile industry to shorten the development circles. However, there is still room for further improving the time cost of current road simulation test. This paper described a new method considering both the damage error and the runtime of the test on a multi-axial test rig. First, the fatigue editing technique is applied to cut the small load in road data to reduce the runtime initially. The edited road load data could be reproduced on a multi-axial test rig successfully. Second, the rainflow matrices of strains on different proving ground roads are established and transformed into damage matrices based on the S-N curve and Miner rules using a reduction method. A standard simulation test for vehicle reliability procedure is established according to the proving ground schedule as a target to be accelerated.

Atomization of fuel sprays is a key factor in controlling the combustion quality in the direct-injection engines. In this present work, the effect of saturation ratio (Rs) on the near nozzle spray patterns of ethanol was investigated using an ultra-high speed imaging technique. The Rs range covered both flash-boiling and non-flash boiling regions. Ethanol was injected from a single-hole injector into an optically accessible constant volume chamber at a fixed injection pressure of 40 MPa with different fuel temperatures and back pressures. High-speed imaging was performed using an ultrahigh speed camera (1 million fps) coupled with a long-distance microscope. Under non-flash boiling conditions, the effect of Rs on fuel development was small but observable. Clear fuel collision can be observed at Rs=1.5 and 1.0. Under the flash boiling conditions, near-nozzle spray patterns were significant different from the non-flash boiling ones.

In quasi-static tension and compression tests of thermoplastics, full-field strain distribution on the gage section of the specimen can be captured using the two-dimensional digital image correlation method. By loading the test specimens made of a talc-filled and impact-modified polypropylene up to tensile failure and large compressive strains, this study has revealed that inhomogeneous deformation within the gage section occurs quite early for both test types. This leads to the challenge of characterizing the mechanical properties - some mechanical properties such as stress-strain relationship and fracture strain could depend on the measured section length and location. To study this problem, the true stress versus true strain curves determined locally in different regions within the gage length are compared.

Highly autonomous vehicles have drawn the interests of many researchers in recent years. For highly autonomous vehicles, a high-definition (HD) map is crucial since it provides accurate information for autonomous driving. However, due to the possible fast-changing environment, the performance of HD maps will deteriorate over time if timely updates are not ensured. Therefore, this paper studies the updating of lightweight HD maps in closed areas. Firstly, a novel two-layer map model called a lightweight HD map is introduced to support autonomous driving in a flexible and efficient way. Secondly, typical updating of scenarios in closed areas with non-paved roads is abstracted into operations including area border expansion, road addition, and road deletion. Meanwhile, a map updating framework is proposed to address the issue of map updating in closed areas. Finally, an experiment is conducted to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed map updating approach.

A feasible method was developed to reconstruct the three-dimensional flame surface of SI combustion based on 2D images. A double-window constant volume vessel was designed to simultaneously obtain the side and bottom images of the flame. The flame front was reconstructed based on 2D images with a slicing model, in which the flame characteristics were derived by slicing flame contour modeling and flame-piston collision area analysis. The flame irregularity and anisotropy were also analyzed. Two different principles were used to build the slicing model, the ellipse hypothesis modeling and deep learning modeling, in which the ellipse hypothesis modeling was applied to reconstruct the flame in the optical SI engine. And the reconstruction results were analyzed and discussed. The reconstruction results show that part of the wrinkled and folded structure of the flame front in SI engines can be revealed based on the bottom view image.

Polyoxymethylene dimethyl ethers (PODEn) have high cetane number, high oxygen content and high volatility, therefore can be added to gasoline to optimize the performance and soot emission of Gasoline Compression Ignition (GCI) combustion. High speed imaging was used to investigate the spray and combustion process of gasoline/PODEn blends (PODEn volume fraction 0%-30%) under various ambient conditions and injection strategies in a constant volume vessel. Results showed that with an increase of PODEn proportion from 10% to 30%, liquid-phase penetration of the spray increased slightly, ignition delay decreased from 3.8 ms to 2.0 ms and flame lift off length decreased 29.4%, causing a significant increase of the flame luminance. For blends with 20% PODEn, when ambient temperature decreased from 893 K to 823 K, the ignition delay increased 1.3 ms and the flame luminance got lower.

An experiment was carried out to investigate the effect of single and double-deck pre-chamber on the combustion characteristics of premixed CH4/air in a constant volume vessel using schlieren method. A special design was proposed for the visualization of the pre-chamber. Combustion with different initial temperatures (300 K, 400 K, 500 K) were observed at stoichiometric ratio to lean-burn limit. Although single-deck pre-chamber has advantages over double-deck pre-chamber in both initial flame development duration and main combustion duration, the latter could extend the lean-burn limit by up to 0.3 and promote the stability of ignition. It is also found that extensive distribution of active species in main chamber before ignition can accelerate speed of flame propagation enormously.

Low back pain has a higher prevalence among drivers who have long term history of vehicle operations. Vehicle vibration has been considered to contribute to the onset of low back pain. However, the fundamental mechanism that relates vibration to low back pain is still not clear. Little is known about the relationship between vibration exposure, the biomechanical response, and the physiological responses of the seated human. The aim of this study was to determine the vibration frequency that causes the increase of muscle activity that can lead to muscle fatigue and low back pain. This study investigated the effects of various vibration frequencies on the lumbar and thoracic paraspinal muscle responses among 11 seated volunteers exposed to sinusoidal whole body vibration varying from 4Hz to 30Hz at 0.4 g of acceleration. The accelerations of the seat and the pelvis were recorded during various frequency of vibrations. Muscle activity was measured using electromyography (EMG).

In this decade, the detailed multi-layer FE model is always applied for investigating the mechanical behavior of Li-ion batteries under mechanical abuse. However, establishing a detailed model of different types of batteries requires a series of material characterization of components. To improve the efficiency of the procedure of component calibration, we introduce a procedure of automatic coating material characterization as an example to represent the strategy. The proposed method is constructing a response solver through MATLAB to predict the mechanical behavior of the coating specimen's representative volume element (RVE) under designated test conditions. The coating material is represented through Drucker-Prager-Cap (DPC) model. All parameters, including boundary conditions and material parameters, are included in this solver.

Liquid ammonia is an ideal zero carbon fuel to reduce carbon emission of internal combustion engines. The high-pressure injection of liquid ammonia is a key technology to fast distribute fuels and prepare better combustion performances. The physical properties of liquid ammonia are different to traditional fossil fuels including diesel and gasoline, which can change the spray and droplet characteristics significantly. However, the spray droplet characteristics of liquid ammonia injection is lack of investigations. In this paper, Phase Doppler Particle Analyzer (PDPA) are used to measure the droplet diameter and velocity of high-pressure liquid ammonia sprays up to 75 MPa and compare to diesel sprays. Effects of flash boiling of liquid ammonia droplet characteristics are also analyzed.