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The conventional internal combustion engines continue to dominate many fields like transportation, agriculture and power generation. Moreover, apprehension over oil price restriction has created an unprecedented demand for fuel economy. Diesel engine is mostly preferred for its higher thermal efficiency, high-torque and outstanding longevity. In recent days with flooded technologies, Uniqueness and the Differentiation of Product play vital role for a successful business in Auto Industry. The present invention is related to the Challenges of Design & Development of Conventional Diesel Engine to meet the stringent emission & performance requirements (BS-IV) of Internal Combustion engines, and more particularly to achieve the targets with conventional Fuel Injection Systems (Non-electronic Fuel Injectors, In-Line Fuel Injection Pump-Governed Electronically) with required sub-systems on IC engine.

Due to recent infrastructural development and emerging competitive automotive markets, there is seen a huge shift in customer’s demand and vehicle drivability pattern in commercial vehicle industry. Now apart from ensuring better vehicle durability and best in class tyre life and fuel mileage, a vehicle manufacturer also has to focus on other key attributes like driver’s safety and ride comfort. Thus, for ensuring enhanced drivability, key parameters for ensuring better vehicle handling includes optimization of bump steer and brake steer. Both bump steer and brake steer are vehicle’s undesirable phenomenon where a driver is forced to constantly make steering wheel correction in order to safely maneuver the vehicle in the desired path.

CNG has proven to be a concrete alternative to gasoline and diesel fuel for sustained mobility. Due to stringent emission norms and sanctions being imposed on diesel fuel vehicles, OEMs have shifted their attention towards natural gas as an efficient and green fuel. Newly implemented BS VI emission norms in India have stressed on the reduction of Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) from the exhaust by almost 85% as compared to BS IV emission norms. Also, Indian Automotive market is fuel economy cautious. This challenges to focus on improving fuel economy but without increase in NOx emissions. Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) has the potential to reduce the NOx emissions by decreasing the in-cylinder temperature. The objective of the paper is to model a CNG TCIC engine using 1D simulation in order to optimize the NOx emissions and maintain exhaust temperatures under failsafe limits.

Bogie-type suspensions for trucks are comprised of two axles and a central spring pack on each side of the truck chassis. Bogie suspensions have a good load distribution between the axles and are used for severe applications in trucks, in off-road conditions thereby subjecting them to extreme stain and load. In today’s competitive market scenario, it of utmost importance to minimize down time in commercial vehicles as it directly corresponds to loss in business which leads to customer dissatisfaction. It is therefore essential to optimize and select the right material for each component in the bogie suspension system. This paper deals with the material selection and testing of one such component - Bogie Wear Pad. The bogie wear pad undergoes sliding friction throughout its lifetime during loading and unloading of bogie suspension. Three different materials are selected and their wear is measured under the same conditions of loading.

The sheet metal forming is conventionally studied using circular grid analysis. The recent developments in image processing techniques have made more accurate prediction of forming strains possible. Optical strain analysis is difficult for shop floor quality because of the higher cost of the system. Besides, the optical strain analyzer demands certain illumination requirements. Hence, conventional circular grid analysis is preferred for formability inspection at shop floor level. This paper focuses in benchmarking the circular grid analysis technique against the optical strain analysis for an automotive component. In the current work, the results of finite element analysis of a stamping process are initially validated with more accurate optical strain analysis. Later, the validation is done separately with circular grid analysis and the results of circular grid analysis are compared against that of optical strain analysis.

The automotive industry is one of the industries that have visibility suffered a strong demand for higher environmental performance. This industry have enjoyed years as the main source of employment and economic growth, today it is being pointed out as one of the major contributors to air pollution in urban centers. Indeed the benefits of automobile provide the means of gaining access to life's necessities and employment and a source of pleasure. However, despite these benefits there are environmental burdens as well: local air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, road congestion, noise, mortality and morbidity from accidents and less open space to roads. Thus companies in the sector have been trying different strategies to overcome these challenges Evaluation of Emission development for commercial vehicles had always been great challenge to continuously migrate from one level of emission norm to other maintaining the business continuity.

CABIN design is continuously undergoing a huge change for reasons of customer comfort on for meeting regulatory requirement. Consequently the strategic design process will not only consider need for high strength structures but a pragmatic research based approach utilizing the latest technology. Though cab structure is built by a sheet metal blank as per the required dimensions, some locations encounter great amounts of stress and must be designed to withstand the same in a durable way. A possible simpler practice would be to add reinforcements in the high stress area or use high strength material for the entire part. However in this approach weight and cost of the component will be increased. As the weight of the Cabin, vehicle increases this will impact fuel efficiency. Attempts have been taken like using composite materials.

A methodology for design and development of commercial vehicle cooling system is derived with an objective to minimize part cost, engineering resources and time to market. This approach is very useful in companies with more variant of engines and vehicles. For this it is identified to have a common cooling system for a set of engines. A systematic approach to develop cooling system based on heat rejection is conceptualised. Engines are classified based on heat loads in to various groups. The cooling package selected for a particular group is independent of type of vehicle (bus or truck), cab (day, sleeper, FES or FBS), Type of drive (LHD or RHD), Emission norm (BSIII or BSIV) and fuel (Diesel or CNG). These packages will cover up the entire range of vehicles and engines. The packaging space available for each group is derived and the cooling package size is finalised. Fan and fan pulley options are listed based on air flow and fuel efficiency requirements.

The cost incurred to make design modifications to solve NVH problems increases with maturity of design in the development process. Hence NVH issues should be addressed in the initial phase to avoid any significant changes in structure and subsequent changes in overall performance of the vehicle. Hybrid methodology with application of advanced testing and Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) tools to achieve full vehicle NVH attribute targets is nowadays a must for this reason. This paper represents a case study on low frequency NVH performance evaluation and refinement for heavy commercial vehicle truck using Hybrid Test-CAE methodology. To achieve better NVH performance, it is important to set competitive overall vehicle level NVH targets and cascade it down to system and sub-system targets. Test-CAE correlation has been carried out to validate Finite element (FE) modeling procedure and methodology.

Buses have been main means of mass transport in organized as well as unorganized sectors in India. Though the art and science of Chassis Designing had been practiced and matured by all Indian OEMs, Body design had long not been accorded high priority by them. Till 1989, there was no comprehensive set of rules enforced. Bus designs were developed with scant regard for safety and emission. OEMs sold their products in the form of drive away chassis and the Body Design & Body Building was largely left to Body Builders, many of whom employed poor design, build and quality control practices. Spurious materials, parts, non-uniform construction resulted in number of accidents and many of them were fatal. Central Motor Vehicle Rules (CMVR) kicked-in 1st July 1989. With roll out of CMVR, various safety related features like entry/exit door, emergency exits, window frames, their locations, dimensions and designs were defined.

Oil strainer is used in engine oil sump, which prevents dirt, scale and other particle from clogging downstream orifice. In this paper, dynamic analysis was carried out using FEA tool. As a part of dynamic analysis, constrained modal analysis and frequency response (steady state dynamics) analysis was done. Frequency response analysis was done for different engine exciting frequency at different service load (vibration amplitude). Modal superposition method is used for doing frequency response analysis and load is applied as base excitation. The natural frequency from modal analysis and stress response from frequency response analysis is well correlated with test results. Based on achieved good correlation with test, several design modification could be carried out in CAE before finalizing the final design.

The application of virtual simulations of crash has become an integral part of the vehicle development process. Virtual simulation offers opportunities to reduce development time and the number of physical prototypes consumed for design verification and validation. With the continuously increase of new accident and regulatory scenarios the dependency to virtual simulation and validation is becoming an inseparable factor in product development. This paper presents simulations that are performed to verify various safety aspects to ensure crashworthiness of the truck cabin. The cabin structure was evaluated for various load cases as per ECER 29 rev 2.0 safety regulation [1]. The FE model and simulation methodology was validated through physical testing and correlated for frontal impact test and roof strength test as per AIS 029/ECE-R 29 rev 2.0 [2]. Paper also discuss on the issue faced in correlation of test vs. Virtual validation using explicit solver.

The sequence of manufacturing processes involved in the making of truck frame rail sections leave a certain amount of imperfections in the form of plastic deformation and residual stresses in it. These residual stresses along with the externally induced loading stresses together should not be allowed to cross the yield limit of the frame material as it leads to premature failure of frame rail before giving its expected life. One such manufacturing process inducing premature failure is studied in detail using experimental analyses and presented in this paper. The kink bending process employed on the already formed and bolt hole punched C section frame rail, leads to plastic deformation and material crowding around the bolt hole located near the kink bend area of the frame flange.

The automotive industry needs sustainable seating products which offer good climate performance and superior seating comfort. The safety requirement is always a concern for current seating systems. The life of the present seating system is low and absorbs moisture over a period of time which affects seat performance (cushioning effect). Recycling is one of the major concerns as far as polyurethane (PU) is concerned. This paper presents the development of an alternative material which is eco-friendly and light in weight. Thermoplastic Polyolefin (PO) materials were tried in place PU for many good reasons. It is closed cell foam which has better tear and abrasion resistance. It doesn't absorb water and has excellent weathering resistance. Also it has a better cushioning effect and available in various colours. Because of superior tear resistance, it is possible to eliminate upholstery and would reduce system level cost.

In heavy duty diesel engines, exhaust gas recirculation is often preferred choice to contain NOx emissions, in this a part of exhaust gas is tapped from exhaust manifold or later and recirculated to air intake pipe before intake manifold. Critical to such engines is the design of air intake pipe and intake manifold combination in view of proper exhaust gas mixing with intake air. The variation in exhaust gas mass fraction at each intake port should be as minimal as possible and this variation must be contained within +/− 10% band to have a minimal cylinder to cylinder variation of pollutants. Exhaust gas homogeneity for various intake configurations was studied using three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics for a 4 cylinder, 3.8 L, Diesel fuelled, common rail, turbocharged and intercooled heavy duty engine. Flow field was studied in the computational domain from the point before exhaust gas mixing till all the four intake ports.

With advancement of technology, better safety and higher vehicle reliability is primary requirement of end customer especially in public transportation. Hence there exist challenges in design and development of steering system for long haulage and tipper application. In the steering system, track rod is used to steer both the front tyre under different operating condition assisted by power steering system. This paper deals with the failures observed on track rod in long haulage and tipper application with loading conditions. Also the methodology adapted to resolve the field failures.

Commercial vehicle industry is presently striving towards development of buses with enhanced passenger safety and comfort. This calls for additional components and aggregates that eventually lead to increase in the overall length and gross vehicle weight (GVW) of the bus for the same passenger capacity. Usually, steering system of longer front overhang (FOH) vehicles have multiple linkages such as bevel box arrangement or intermediate pivot arm arrangement instead of single direct draglink because of packaging and design constraints. In this work, an attempt has been made to design the steering system for one of the longer FOH bus with single direct draglink arrangement. Here, single draglink was packaged and designed with commercially available higher strength tube material. Design optimisation of steering geometry was carried such that the steering performance was atleast on par with existing performance.

The durability of the components in a vehicle plays one of the major roles in its life cycle cost. The powertrain mount is one such component since its rubber characteristics have significant impact on the vehicle's NVH and fatigue life. This paper presents the enhanced durability benefits obtained by changing the polymer composition, manufacturing methods and design optimization of a powertrain mount for an off-road commercial vehicle. The methodology involved characterization[2] of the existing mount, arriving a new compound formulation, making of prototypes, experimental validation for durability[3] and repeatability in the laboratory combined with rigorous on field vehicle trials. NVH measurements were also carried out on the improved mounts. The above exhaustive exercise resulted in the development of a comprehensively far better mount than an existing mount with improved durability without compromise on NVH properties.

The Indian automotive sector is experiencing a major shift, focusing predominantly towards the levels of quality, reliability and comfort delivered to the customer. Since the entry of global players into the market, there is a rising demand for timely product launches with utmost priority to reliability. In any vehicle, engine isolation systems play a critical role in isolating the engine vibrations from the vehicle chassis. This project details on how testing can aid in reducing the launch time as well as estimating the reliability of the component when used in a different application/vehicle. It proposes a methodology to formulate a life model for the engine mount considering various combinations of predictor parameters affecting its performance over its design life. In order to maintain good correlation with the field (which considers the loading pattern and the environmental factors), warranty data was analyzed and the predictors were chosen appropriately.

The suspension system in a vehicle isolates the frame and body from road shocks and vibrations which would otherwise be transferred to the passengers and goods. Heavier goods vehicles use tandem axles at the rear for load carrying. Both the axles should be inter-connected to eliminate overloading of any one axle when this goes over a bump or a ditch. One of the inter-connecting mechanism used is leaf spring with tie rod, bell crank & linkages, when the first rear axle moves over a bump, the linkages equalize the loading on the second rear axle. This paper details about the failure analysis methodology to simulate the tie rod field failure using a six poster road simulator and to identify the root cause of the failure and further corrective actions.