Search Results

Abstract Based on the characteristics of high strength and modulus of carbon fiber-reinforced composite (CFRP), in this article, the CFRP material was used to replace the steel material of the automobile’s B-pillar inner and outer plates, and the three-stage optimization design of the lamination structure was carried out. Firstly, this article used the principle of equal stiffness replacement to determine the thickness of the carbon fiber B-pillar inner and outer plates, and the structural design of the replaced B-pillar was also carried out. Secondly, on the basis of the vehicle collision model, the B-pillar subsystem model was extracted, and the material replacement and collision simulation were carried out.

Abstract Carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) has been used in automobiles as well as airplanes. Because of its light weight and high strength, CFRP is a good choice for making vehicle bodies lighter, which would improve fuel economy. Conventional metal bodies provide a convenient body return for electric wiring and offer good shielding against electromagnetic fields. Although CFRP is a conductor, its conductivity is much lower than that of metals. Therefore, CFRP bodies are usually not useful for electric wiring. In thunderstorms, an automotive body is considered to be a Faraday cage that protects the vehicle’s occupants from the potential harms of lightning. Before CFRP becomes widely applied to automotive bodies, its electric and electromagnetic properties need to be investigated in order to determine whether it also works as a Faraday cage against lightning. In this article, CFRP and metal body vehicles were tested under artificial lightning.

Abstract Real-time reconstruction of 3D environment attributed with semantic information is significant for a variety of applications, such as obstacle detection, traffic scene comprehension and autonomous navigation. The current approaches to achieve it are mainly using stereo vision, Structure from Motion (SfM) or mobile LiDAR sensors. Each of these approaches has its own limitation, stereo vision has high computational cost, SfM needs accurate calibration between a sequences of images, and the onboard LiDAR sensor can only provide sparse points without color information. This paper describes a novel method for traffic scene semantic segmentation by combining sparse LiDAR point cloud (e.g. from Velodyne scans), with monocular color image. The key novelty of the method is the semantic coupling of stereoscopic point cloud with color lattice from camera image labelled through a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN).

Abstract In this paper, an efficient lane detection using deep feature extraction method is proposed to achieve real-time lane detection in diverse road environment. The method contains three main stages: 1) pre-processing, 2) deep lane feature extraction and 3) lane fitting. In pre-processing stage, the inverse perspective mapping (IPM) is used to obtain a bird's eye view of the road image, and then an edge image is generated using the canny operator. In deep lane feature extraction stage, an advanced lane extraction method is proposed. Firstly, line segment detector (LSD) is applied to achieve the fast line segment detection in the IPM image. After that, a proposed adaptive lane clustering algorithm is employed to gather the adjacent line segments generated by the LSD method. Finally, a proposed local gray value maximum cascaded spatial correlation filter (GMSF) algorithm is used to extract the target lane lines among the multiple lines.

Abstract Tire-pavement interaction noise (TPIN) dominates for passenger cars above 40 km/h and trucks above 70 km/h. Numerous studies have attempted to uncover and distinguish the basic mechanisms of TPIN. However, intense debate is still ongoing about the validity of these mechanisms. In this work, the physical mechanisms proposed in the literature were reviewed and divided into three categories: generation mechanisms, amplification mechanisms, and attenuation mechanisms. The purpose of this article is to gather the published general opinions for further open discussions.

Abstract The dynamic characteristics of tires are critical in the overall vibrations of vehicles because the tire-road interface is the only medium of energy transfer between the vehicle and the road surface. Obtaining the natural frequencies and mode shapes of the tire helps in improving the comfort of the passengers. The vibrational characteristics of structures are usually obtained by performing conventional impact hammer modal testing, in which the structure is excited with an impact hammer and the response of the structure under excitation is captured using accelerometers. However, this approach only provides the response of the structure at a few discrete locations, and it is challenging to use this procedure for rotating structures. Digital Image Correlation (DIC) helps in overcoming these challenges by providing the full-field response of the structure.

Abstract The innovations of vehicle connectivity have been increasing dramatically to enhance the safety and user experience of driving, while the rising numbers of interfaces to the external world also bring security threats to vehicles. Many security countermeasures have been proposed and discussed to protect the systems and services against attacks. To provide an overview of the current states in this research field, we conducted a systematic mapping study (SMS) on the topic area “security countermeasures of in-vehicle communication systems.” A total of 279 papers are identified based on the defined study identification strategy and criteria. We discussed four research questions (RQs) related to the security countermeasures, validation methods, publication patterns, and research trends and gaps based on the extracted and classified data. Finally, we evaluated the validity threats and the whole mapping process.

Abstract The use of nanomaterials and nanostructures have been revolutionizing the advancements of science and technology in various engineering and medical fields. As an example, Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) have been extensively used for the improvement of mechanical, thermal, electrical, magnetic, and deteriorative properties of traditional composite materials for applications in high-performance structures. The exceptional materials properties of CNTs (i.e., mechanical, magnetic, thermal, and electrical) have introduced them as promising candidates for reinforcement of traditional composites. Most structural configurations of CNTs provide superior material properties; however, their geometrical shapes can deliver different features and characteristics. As one of the unique geometrical configurations, helical CNTs have a great potential for improvement of mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties of polymeric resin composites.

Abstract Improving the aerodynamics of heavy trucks is an important consideration in the strive for more energy-efficient vehicles. Cooling drag is one part of the total aerodynamic resistance acting on a vehicle, which arises as a consequence of air flowing through the grille area, the heat exchangers, and the irregular under-hood area. Today cooling packages of heavy trucks are dimensioned for a critical cooling case, typically when the vehicle is driving fully laden, at low speed up a steep hill. However, for long-haul trucks, mostly operating at highway speeds on mostly level roads, it may not be necessary to have all the cooling airflow from an open-grille configuration. It can therefore be desirable for fuel consumption purposes, to shut off the entire cooling airflow, or a portion of it, under certain driving conditions dictated by the cooling demands. In Europe, most trucks operating on the roads are of cab-over-engine type, as a consequence of the length legislations present.

Abstract An investigation into the capability of passive porosity to reduce the drag of a bluff-body is presented. This initial work involves integrating varying degrees of porosity into the side and back faces of a small-scale model to determine optimum conditions for maximum drag reduction. Both force and pressure measurements at differing degrees of model yaw are presented, with the conditions for optimum performance, identified. At a length-based Reynolds number of 2.3 × 106, results showed a maximum drag reduction of 12% at zero yaw when the ratio of the open area on the back face relative to the side faces was between two and four. For all non-zero yaw angles tested, this ratio reduced to approximately two, with the drag benefit reducing to 6% at 10.5 degrees. From a supplementary theoretical analysis, calculated optimum bleed rate into the base for maximum drag reduction, also showed reasonable agreement to other results reported previously.

Abstract The Friction stir welding (FSW) is recently presented so to join different materials without the melting process as a solid-state joining technique. A widely application for the FSW process is recently developed in automotive industries. To create the welded components by using the FSW, the plunged probe and shoulder as welding tools are used. The Finite Element Method (FEM) can be used so to simulate and analyze material flow during the FSW process. As a result, thermal and mechanical stresses on the workpiece and welding tool can be analyzed and decreased. Effects of the welding process parameters such as tool rotational speed, welding speed, tool tilt angle, depth of the welding tool, and tool shoulder diameter can be analyzed and optimized so to increase the efficiency of the production process. Material characteristics of welded parts such as hardness or grain size can be analyzed so to increase the quality of part production.

Abstract The present study aims to join the dissimilar materials such as Dual-Phase (DP) 600 Steel and AA6082-T6 Aluminum (Al) alloy via the friction stir welding (FSW) process with a reduced intermetallic compound (IMC) layer. The five different tool tilt angles of 0°, 0.5°, 1°, 1.5°, and 2° were selected to fabricate the joints. The weld characteristics such as tensile strength, hardness, macrostructure, and microstructure were analyzed. The weld interface was studied by employing an optical microscope and scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques. The joint produced with a 0.5° tilt angle has achieved the highest ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of 240 MPa. The IMCs were identified as Fe2Al8 and FeAl2 from the joint interface studies.

Abstract Vaporizing foil actuator welding (VFAW) created nominally solid-state spot welds between high-strength DP980 steel and 6022 T4 aluminum. The effects of varying the impact velocity and angle between the Al flyer and target steel sheets on the structure and properties of the joints were evaluated using photonic Doppler velocimetry (PDV), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), fractography, and energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analysis. The incident angle and velocity of the flyer plate were quantified using PDV, and their relations to the structure and properties of the joint were assessed with microscopy and strength testing. Impact velocity and average impact angle increase with the increasing standoff. Lower impact angles and higher impact velocities promoted interfacial failure due to increased melting, higher intermetallic thickness, and lower wave amplitude and wavelength.

Abstract The causes of failure due to cracking in the resistance spot welding of the advanced high-strength steels dual-phase 590 (DP590) were investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), optical microscopy, and the tensile-shear test. The results showed that by increasing the current amount, the formation of the melting zone occurred in the heat-affected zone, leading to the cracking in this area, reducing the tensile strength and decreasing the mechanical properties; the initiation and growth of cracking and failure in this region also happened. In the heat-affected zone, by increasing the current amount with the softening phenomenon, the recrystallized coarse grains also occurred, eventually resulting in the loss of mechanical properties. The results of the tensile-shear test also indicated that by increasing the current up to 12 kA, the strength was raised, but the ductility was reduced.

Abstract Automated guided vehicle systems (AGVS) are the prominent one in modern material handling systems used in small manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) due to their exciting features and benefits. This article pinpoints the need of AGVS in SMEs by describing the material handling selection in SMEs and enlightening recent technological developments and approaches of the AGVS. Additionally, it summarizes the analytical and simulation-based tools utilized in design problems of AGVS along with the influence of material handling management and key hurdles of AGVS. The current study provides a limelight towards making smart automated guided vehicles (AGVs) with the simplified and proper routing system and favorable materials and more importantly reducing the cost and increasing the flexibility.

Abstract Today’s explosive condition of the market is compelling the manufacturing organizations to switch from traditional manufacturing (TM) to lean manufacturing (LM) to create a footprint in this competitive era. In this article, 16 critical success factors (CSFs) for LM implementation are identified through a vast literature review, the opinion of academicians and industry experts and interpretive structural modeling (ISM) is used to create interrelationships among the identified CSFs, and interpretive ranking process (IRP) rank these CSFs based on dominance with respect to performance dimensions. Leadership and management made the foundation of an ISM model while the training and people development have secured the first rank in the IRP model. Implementation of such ISM- and IRP-based models of CSF would give a clear understanding of these CSFs so that LM researchers, decision-makers, managers, and practitioners of LM will use their resources more efficiently.

Abstract In this study, two types of drag reduction devices (a horizontal plate, and a vertical plate) are used to weaken the downwash of the upper flow and c-pillar vortex of the DrivAer notchback model driving at high speed (140 km/h). By analyzing and comparing 15 cases in total, the aerodynamic drag reduction mechanism can be used in the development of vehicles. First, various CFD simulation conditions of a baseline model were compared to determine the analysis condition that efficiently calculates the correct aerodynamic drag. The vertical plate and horizontal plate applied in the path of the c-pillar vortex and downwash suppressed vortex development and induced rapid dissipation. As a result, the application of a 50-mm wedge-shaped vertical plate to the trunk weakened the vortex and reduced the drag by 3.3% by preventing the side flow from entering the trunk top.

Abstract The pursuit of improved fuel economy through weight reduction, reduced manufacturing costs, and improved crash safety can result in increased compliance in automobile structures. However, with compliance comes an increased susceptibility to aerodynamic and vibratory loads. The hood in particular withstands considerable aerodynamic force at highway speeds, creating the potential for significant aeroelastic response that may adversely impact customer satisfaction and perception of vehicle quality. This work seeks an improved understanding in computational and experimental study of fluid-structure interactions between automobile hoods and the surrounding internal and external flow. Computational analysis was carried out using coupled CFD-FEM solvers with detailed models of the automobile topology and structural components. The experimental work consisted of wind tunnel tests using a full-scale production vehicle.

Abstract This study shows the development of low-temperature and high-temperature reactions in a gasoline-fuelled compression ignition (GCI) engine realizing partially premixed combustion for high efficiency and low emissions. The focus is how the ignition occurs during the low- to high-temperature reaction transition and how it varies due to single- and double-injection strategies. In an optically accessible, single-cylinder small-bore diesel engine equipped with a common-rail fuel injection system, planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) imaging of formaldehyde (HCHO-PLIF), hydroxyl (OH-PLIF), and fuel (fuel-PLIF) has been performed. This was complemented with high-speed imaging of combustion luminosity and chemiluminescence imaging of cool flame and OH*.

Abstract The development and control of spark-ignition engines with increased efficiency and reduced engine-out emissions requires tools and methods capable of providing insight and eventually predicting Cycle-to-Cycle Variations (CCV). To this end, Large-Eddy Simulations (LES) can improve the understanding of stochastic in-cylinder phenomena during the engine design process. However, available LES methods are typically not able to reproduce the full extent of cyclic variability observed in experiments, and computational costs are higher compared to established simulation approaches. In this work, an engine flowbench configuration suitable for validation of LES methods and intake flow assessment is considered. To supplement an existing validation database, Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and wall pressure measurements have been conducted in a reference optical engine geometry, which is available through the Darmstadt Engine Workshop.