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Patents granted recently to Mr. Rode have changed the industry capability to adjust and verify wheel-end bearings on trucks. Until now it was believed1 that there was nothing available to confirm or verify the most desirable settings of preload on these bearings. The new, breakthrough invention is a tool and spindle-locking nut that permit quick and accurate wheel bearing adjustment by utilizing direct reading force measurement. Bearings can be set to either SAE recommended preloads or specific endplay settings. The author has been working on bearing adjustment methods for industrial applications for over forty years, and considers these inventions to be his most important breakthrough for solving this elusive bearing adjustment problem. Consistent wheel bearing preload adjustment was not possible before, even though it was widely known to achieve the best wheel performance as noted in SAE specification J2535 and re-affirmed in 2006 by the SAE Truck and Bus Wheel Subcommittee.

Adoption of a new Electronic Systems Computer-Aided Design (ECAD) system for modeling electrical systems design by Product Engineering offers the promise of improved accuracy and productivity for Service Publication's authors to create wiring diagrams and to standardize their format; while improving the comprehension and functionality of those documents for service technicians. It is also potentially disruptive, requiring new workflows, processes, standards and lines of communication to be developed. This paper describes how to structure and organize a project for effectively and efficiently bringing a new ECAD system for modeling electrical system design into Service Publications. It also provides insight into some lessons learned.

Agriculture Tractors are widely used as prime mover either to pull or drive the “Implements” in the farms, apart from custom made equipments like Transplanter, Manure Spreader, Combine Harvester, Cotton Picker, mobile irrigation etc. which are used for particular operations in large production capacities. For larger landholdings, timely completion of the operation within the window period is the major decisive factor that drives agriculture tractor design. For small farms like in India, the productivity requirement was offset by the versatility of the equipment. Also, the farming practice varies in India due to geographical conditions such as soil types and demographic conditions such as crops types. Hence, the mechanisation level of matured market was not yet achieved in India, though the technologies are available for implementation.

1 One issue raised by the use of austenitic stainless steels in commercial vehicles is the increase in material costs. To reduce those material costs, a nitric acid electropolishing treatment was applied to SUS436L (18 Cr - 1.5 Mo - 0.4 Nb) and corrosion tests were conducted to compare its corrosion resistance to that of SUS316L(16 Cr - 12 Ni - 2 Mo). Compared to SUS316L, SUS436L subjected to nitric acid electropolishing indicated superior corrosion resistance. In addition, XPS and TEM analyses showed that while the SUS436L passivation film layer contained approximately twice as much chromium, its thickness was also generally reduced by approximately half, to 2 nm. These results suggest that electropolishing with nitric acid, which is highly oxidative, formed a fine passivation film.

Emission, fuel economy and productivity in non-road mobile machinery (NRMM) depend largely on drive cycles. Understanding drive cycles can provide the in-depth information and knowledge that help the system integrator better optimize the vehicle management system. Some non-road engine test cycles already exist nowadays. However, these cycles are mainly for engine emission regulation purpose, and not closely tied to real world applications. Therefore, from both industries and academia, it has been the common practice to instrument and retrofit a vehicle, assign a professional driver operate the retrofitted vehicle for real testing, and compare the results to the baseline vehicle under the similar operating conditions. Obviously this approach is time consuming and resource intensive. In this paper, we attempt to address this issue by introducing a method of constructing standard drive cycles from in-field operation data.

Research activities in the development of reliable computational models for aftertreatment systems are constantly increasing in the automotive field. These investigations are essential in order to get a complete understanding of the main catalytic processes which clearly have a great impact on tailpipe emissions. In this work, a 1D chemical reaction model to simulate the catalytic activity of a Pd/Rh Three-Way Catalyst (TWC) for a Natural Gas heavy-duty engine is presented. An extensive database of tests carried out with the use of a Synthetic Gas Bench (SGB) has been collected to investigate the methane abatement pathways, linked to the lambda variation and oxide formation on palladium surface. Specific steady-state tests have shown a dynamics of the methane conversion even at fixed λ and temperature conditions, essentially due to the Pd/PdO ratio.

This SAE Standard provides a comprehensive list of requirements for the selection, identification, and control of metric and inch sized fasteners for use in shipboard applications for both shipbuilder installed joints and for use in shipboard components. The fastener selection requirements include the following: a Materials b Thread selection c Plating, coatings, and surface treatments d Locking devices and elements e Screw thread fastener inserts f Fastener part or identifying numbers g Identification markings

This Hydrospace Information Report (HIR) identifies the general environmental considerations for the design, development, evaluation, and testing of advanced surface craft, submersible vehicles, and other marine craft. This HIR provides criteria on the environmental limits within which marine vehicles, related components, and associated equipment should operate satisfactorily and reliably. This HIR is intended for use as a guide for the development of specific environmental requirements to be included in detailed specifications for marine vehicles and associated equipment. Specific requirements are in a state of continual change as our knowledge of the ocean environment increases. The ocean environment varies with location and time. Changes in the ocean environment can occur not only on a seasonal basis but also monthly, weekly, daily, and in some cases even hourly.

This Hydrospace Information Report (HIR) identifies the general environmental considerations for the design, development, evaluation, and testing of advanced surface craft, submersible vehicles, and other marine craft. This HIR provides criteria on the environmental limits within which marine vehicles, related components, and associated equipment should operate satisfactorily and reliably.

A number of oxidation catalysts have been prepared using different types of advanced support materials such as ceria-zirconia, silica-titania, spinels and perovskites. Active metals such as Pd and Au-Pd were loaded by conventional impregnation techniques and/or deposition-precipitation methods. A liquid hydrocarbon delivery system was designed and implemented for the catalyst test benches in order to simulate the diesel engine exhaust environment. The activity of fresh (no degreening) catalysts was evaluated with traditional CO and light hydrocarbons (C2H4, C3H6) as well as with heavy hydrocarbons such as C10 H22.

Developing relatively cheap and widely available resources for heterogeneous solid catalyst synthesis is a promising approach for biodiesel fuel industry. Seashell which is essentially calcium carbonate can be used as a basic support for transesterification heterogeneous catalysts. In the present investigation, the alcoholysis of waste frying oil has been carried out using seashell-supported K₃PO₄ as solid catalyst. The rationale for this derives from the fact that waste frying oil contains both long-chain free fatty acids (FFA) and triglycerides (TG) which are catalyzed on acid and basic sites respectively. Thus, the K₃PO₄/seashell catalyst may serve the dual role of promoting both esterification and transesterification reactions. The catalyst was synthesized following a dipping impregnation of pre-crushed and calcined seashell in an aqueous solution of K₃PO₄. Samples with different percentage loadings of K₃PO₄ (5 to 25 wt%) were prepared.

Powertrain Systems development is entering a period of unprecedented challenge driven by the convergence of many factors: increasing government regulations for both tailpipe emissions and fuel economy, increased competition, reduced workforce, and tighter program budgets. This has resulted in timing compression and resource reduction that stress a typical Design-Build-Test development practice. The application of telematics and information technology to engineering development can provide the efficiency gains required for engineers to deliver a robust powertrain system in a timely manner. By automating the evaluation of a system's robustness, engineers can focus their time on problem areas during their normal development process and launch with quality. This paper will detail how this methodology was jointly applied by Control-Tec and Navistar to identify and improve system performance before production.

Rapid control prototyping (RCP) is a widely used technique for verifying a controller's functional behavior. Typically, RCP uses a target processor with ample processing power and memory, which makes the technique attractive for engineers exploring new concepts. However, a large gap often exists between the RCP target and the production ECU in terms of the available code generation technology, the supporting tool chain, and I/O hardware. Consequently, significant work is required when migrating a controller from RCP to production. Furthermore, due to cost constraints, RCP systems are difficult to deploy in large numbers for fleet testing or preproduction trials. In response to the challenges associated with RCP, automotive engineers are moving towards a technique called on-target rapid prototyping (OTRP).

Durability and reliability performance is one of the most important concerns of a recently developed Thermal Regeneration Unit for Exhaust (T.R.U.E-Clean®) for exhaust emission control. Like other ground vehicle systems, the T.R.U.E-Clean® system experiences cyclic loadings due to road vibrations leading to fatigue failure over time. Creep and oxidation cause damage at high temperature conditions which further shortens the life of the system and makes fatigue life assessment even more complex. Great efforts have been made to develop the ability to accurately and quickly assess the durability/reliability of the system in the early development stage. However, reliable and validated simplified engineering methods with rigorous mathematical and physical bases are still urgently needed to accurately manage the margin of safety and decrease the cost, whereas iterative testing is expensive and time consuming.

Fatigue, creep, oxidation, or their combinations have long been recognized as the principal failure mechanisms in many high-temperature applications such as exhaust manifolds and thermal regeneration units used in commercial vehicle aftertreatment systems. Depending on the specific materials, loading, and temperature levels, the role of each damage mechanism may change significantly, ranging from independent development to competing and combined creep-fatigue, fatigue-oxidation, creep-fatigue-oxidation. Several multiple failure mechanisms based material damage models have been developed, and products to resist these failure mechanisms have been designed and produced. However, one of the key challenges posed to design engineers is to find a way to accelerate the durability and reliability tests of auto exhaust in component and system levels and to validate the product design within development cycle to satisfy customer and market's requirements.

In these years, requirements for application of electronic control to trucks, buses and agricultural vehicles are becoming stronger. This paper discusses current status of electronic products applicable to them in each of the following three control categories - Powertrain control, Vehicle control, and Body control. At present, production amount of these products is not large but production of them is expected to increase to more than dozen of current production within several years.

There is a clear trend for major truck manufacturers to expand outside their traditional “home markets,” and it appears almost inevitable that a global truck industry will eventually become a reality. It is therefore of interest to speculate whether such global manufacturers will be able to serve world markets with a single product line, i.e., a world truck. This paper examines the factors that have brought about variations in the form and function of trucks (3.5 tons and up) in different regions of the world, as well as the trends toward convergence (or lack thereof) of these design variations that are now taking place. The factors that appear to have influenced variation and which are considered here include: historical development, source of vehicles (manufacturing base), regulations, geography, technology, and special market factors.

Producing a commercial vehicle in a single location to satisfy the needs of multiple applications in a world market, cannot be realistically accomplished. Instead, Mercedes-Benz and its subsidiary, Freightliner Corporation, have adopted a strategy, characterized as multi-domestic rather than multinational, which relies on production of trucks in many locations. In this way, qualities can be offered which are in unique demand in those markets while minimizing the development effort and capitalizing on worldwide component sourcing. Presently Mercedes-Benz, including Freightliner, operates 54 truck manufacturing and assembly plants throughout the world. As a part of, and following this strategy, Freightliner has recently launched an all new medium-duty truck program for the U.S. market, produced in an all new manufacturing plant in Cleveland, North Carolina. The present paper describes this program and its development. Refer to Fig. 1.

Presenting a brand new approach to heat exchangers for engines, transmissions, hydraulic systems, etc. This new heat exchanger is made of only two pieces of circular extruded aluminum profiles: Core and shell. No soldering: The core and the shell is assembled by a minimum of automated work. In an oil to water cooling application, the active surface on the oil side of the core is enlarged by fins 0.2 mm thick, 0.3 mm spacing, and 3 mm high. The fins are made in unique production machines and enlarge the active surface area approximately five times compared to a conventional heat exchanger of the same dimensions. The principle utilizes the low pressure drop at laminar flow and avoids the disadvantage of low heat transfer after a certain laminar flow length. The result is approximately three times higher oil heat dissipation, combined with very low oil pressure drop, compared to conventional technique.

A new line of automatic electronically controlled transmissions has been undergoing development by Allison Transmission Division. The first of three models in the family has been introduced into production in September, 1991. Extensive efforts in assuring the reliability of the product and in meeting customer needs have resulted in several product modifications over the initially concepted product. Exhaustive efforts in integrating the design and the factory are resulting in major returns on producibility and quality from the production floor reflecting the total ground up approach to design and manufacturing the new World Transmission Family of heavy duty automatic transmissions.