Search Results

Vehicle weight reduction has become one of the viable solutions to ever-growing energy and environmental crisis. In vehicle design, response surface model (RSM) is commonly used as a surrogate of the high fidelity Finite Element (FE) model to reduce the computational time and improve the efficiency of design process. However, RSM introduces additional sources of uncertainty, such as model bias, which largely affects the reliability and robustness of the prediction results. The bias of RSM need to be addressed before the model is ready for extrapolation and design optimization. For the purpose of constructing and correcting the bias in RSMs, scheduling Design of Experiments (DOEs) must be conducted properly. This paper develops a method to arrange DOEs in order to build RSMs with high quality, considering the influence of input uncertainty.

As a new type of energy, free-piston linear generator (FPLG) attracts more research on its stable operation and power performance, while less on its combustion and emission performance. So, in this paper, the emission characteristics of FPLG in two different modes are studied through a port fuel injection (PFI) mode which was verified by the experiment and a gasoline direct injection (GDI) mode. The results showed that: both the GDI mode and the PFI mode produced large amounts of nitrogen oxide (NOx) during the working process. But the GDI mode produced before the PFI mode and it produced nearly 2 times than the PFI mode. However, the formation rate of NOx in GDI mode is much lower than that in PFI mode. Meanwhile, in both modes, 90% of NOX was generated in the cylinder at the temperature higher than 1750K, and only about 10% of NOX was generated at a temperature lower than 1750K.

The deformation of injector components cannot be disregarded as the pressure of the system increases. Deformation directly affects the characteristics of needle movement and injection quantity. In this study, structural deformation of the nozzle, the needle and the control plunger under different pressures is calculated by a simulation model. The value of the deformation of injector components is calculated and the maximum deformation location is also determined. Furthermore, the calculated results indicates that the deformation of the control plunger increases the control chamber volume and the cross-section area between the needle and the needle seat. A MATLAB model is established to The influence of structural deformation on needle movement characteristics and injection quantity is investigate by a numerical model. The results show that the characteristic points of needle movement are delayed and injection quantity increases due to the deformation.

In order to improve the anti-disturbance performance of engine-load and the effect on speed control for the diesel engine, the paper presents the fuzzy-PID speed control strategy in the architecture of torque-based control. The engine-load estimation algorithm is designed based on the mean-value-model and crankshaft dynamics model, and the estimation precision is validated by engine test in both steady and dynamic conditions. Through the experiment verification of the diesel engine, the fuzzy-PID control strategy based on load estimation can significantly improve the anti-disturbance performance of engine-load in the speed control.

Compression molded SMC composed of chopped carbon fiber and resin polymer which balances the mechanical performance and manufacturing cost presents a promising solution for vehicle lightweight strategy. However, the performance of the SMC molded parts highly depends on the compression molding process and local microstructure, which greatly increases the cost for the part level performance testing and elongates the design cycle. ICME (Integrated Computational Material Engineering) approaches are thus necessary tools to reduce the number of experiments required during part design and speed up the deployment of the SMC materials. As the fundamental stage of the ICME workflow, commercial software packages for SMC compression molding exist yet remain not fully validated especially for chopped fiber systems. In the present study, SMC plaques are prepared through compression molding process.

With the development of advanced ABE fermentation technology, the volumetric percentage of acetone, butanol and ethanol in the bio-solvents can be precisely controlled. To seek for an optimized volumetric ratio for ABE-diesel blends, the previous work in our team has experimentally investigated and analyzed the combustion features of ABE-diesel blends with different volumetric ratio (A: B: E: 6:3:1; 3:6:1; 0:10:0, vol. %) in a constant volume chamber. It was found that an increased amount of acetone would lead to a significant advancement of combustion phasing whereas butanol would compensate the advancing effect. Both spray dynamic and chemistry reaction dynamic are of great importance in explaining the unique combustion characteristic of ABE-diesel blend. In this study, a semi-detailed chemical mechanism is constructed and used to model ABE-diesel spray combustion in a constant volume chamber.

A coupled magnetic-thermal model is established to study the reason for the damage of the starter motor, which belongs to the idling start-stop system of a city bus. A finite element model of the real starter motor is built, and the internal magnetic flux density nephogram and magnetic line distribution chart of the motor are attained by simulation. Then a model in module Transient Thermal of ANSYS is established to calculate the stator and rotor loss, the winding loss and the mechanical loss. Three kinds of losses are coupled to the thermal field as heat sources in two different conditions. The thermal field and the components’ temperature distribution in the starting process are obtained, which are finally compared with the already-burned motor of the city bus in reality to predict the damage. The analysis method proposed is verified to be accurate and reliable through comparing the actual structure with the simulation results.

Chopped carbon fiber sheet molding compound (SMC) material is a promising material for mass-production lightweight vehicle components. However, the experimental characterization of SMC material property is a challenging task and needs to be further investigated. There now exist two ASTM standards (ASTM D7078/D7078M and ASTM D5379/D5379M) for characterizing the shear properties of composite materials. However, it is still not clear which standard is more suitable for SMC material characterization. In this work, a comparative study is conducted by performing two independent Digital Image Correlation (DIC) shear tests following the two standards, respectively. The results show that ASTM D5379/D5379M is not appropriate for testing SMC materials. Moreover, the failure mode of these samples indicates that the failure is caused by the additional moment raised by the improper design of the fixture.

Vehicle hood design is a typical multi-disciplinary task. The hood has to meet the demands of different attributes like safety, dynamics, statics, and NVH (Noise, Vibration, Harshness). Multi-disciplinary optimization (MDO) of vehicle hood at early design phase is an efficient way to support right design decision and avoid late-phase design changes. However, due to lacking in CAD models, it is difficult to realize MDO at early design phase. In this research, a new method of design and optimization is proposed to improve the design efficiency. Firstly, an implicit parametric hood model is built to flexibly change shape and size of hood structure, and generate FE models automatically. Secondly, four types of stiffness analysis, one type of modal analysis, together with pedestrian head impact analysis were established to describe multi-disciplinary concern of vehicle hood design.

An opposed piston two-stroke engine is more suitable for use in an unmanned aerial vehicle because of its small size, excellent self-balancing, stable operation, and low noise. Consequently, in this study, based on experimental data for a prototype opposed piston two-stroke engine, numerical simulation models were established using GT-POWER for 1D simulation and AVL-FIRE for 3D CFD simulation. The mesh grid and solver parameters for the numerical model of the CFD simulation were determined to guarantee the accuracy of the numerical simulation, before studying and optimizing the ventilation efficiency of the engine with different dip angles. Furthermore, the fuel spray and combustion were analyzed and optimized in details.

Incomplete-combustion and misfire are the hurdles in internal combustion engines to run on ultra-lean mixture, whereas high thermal efficiency has been achieved at lean mixture. The burning characteristics of n-heptane with 0% and 30% hydrogen additions were studied at 393K-453K and 100kPa-300kPa up to near lean burn limits, λ=0.8-2.0. The flame appeared in spherical shape only by 37-mJ ignition energy (IE) at λ=0.8-1.5, while further lean mixture, ≥1.6, could be ignited only by 3000-mJ with the distorted flame shape. The flame buoyed in the mixture when burning velocity calculated by kinetic mechanism was equal or less than 19.83 cm/s at the initial conditions of λ=1.8, 393K and 100kPa. The thermal instability under impact of initial pressure and temperature was higher at lean mixture than at stoichiometric mixture.

The dynamic trajectory planning problem for automatic vehicles in complex traffic scenarios is investigated in this paper. A hierarchical motion planning framework is developed to complete the complex planning task. An improved dangerous potential field in the curvilinear coordinate system is constructed to describe the collision risk of automatic vehicles accurately instead of the discrete Gaussian convolution algorithm. At the same time, the driving comfort is also considered in order to generate an optimal, smooth, collision-free and feasible path in dynamics. The optimal path can be mapped into the Cartesian coordinate system simply and conveniently. Furthermore, a velocity profile considering practical vehicle dynamics is also presented to improve the safety and the comfort in driving. The effectiveness of the proposed dynamic trajectory planning is verified by numerical simulation for several typical traffic scenarios.

Hydrogen fuel is a future energy to solve the problems of energy crisis and environmental pollution. Hydrogen internal combustion engines can combine the advantage of hydrogen without carbon pollution and the main basic structure of the traditional engines. However, the power of the port fuel injection hydrogen engines is smaller than the same volume gasoline engine because the hydrogen occupies the volume of the cylinder and reduces the air mass flow. The turbocharger can increase the power of hydrogen engines but also increase the NOx emission. Hence, a comprehensive controlling strategy to solve the contradiction of the power, BTE and NOx emission is important to improve the performance of hydrogen engines. This paper shows the controlling strategy for a four-stroke, 2.3L hydrogen engine with a turbocharger. The controlling strategy divides the operating conditions of the hydrogen engine into six parts according to the engine speeds and loads.

Accident statistics have shown that older and obese occupants are less adaptable to existing vehicle occupant restraint systems than ordinary middle-aged male occupants, and tend to have higher injury risk in vehicle crashes. However, the current research on injury mechanism of aging and obese occupants in vehicle frontal impacts is scarce. This paper focuses on the optimization design method of occupant restraint system parameters for specific body type characteristics. Three parameters, namely the force limit value of the force limiter in the seat belt, pretensioner preload of the seat belt and the proportionality coefficient of mass flow rate of the inflator were used for optimization. The objective was to minimize the injury risk probability subjected to constraints of occupant injury indicator values for various body regions as specified in US-NCAP frontal impact tests requirements.

GT-Power, an engine modeling software, is used to study the combustion characteristics of cottonseed, linseed and peanut oils in a heavy-duty direct-injection diesel engine. The fuel properties library in GT-Power is expanded to include cottonseed oil, linseed oil and peanut oil, using either theoretical methods or experimental measurements. The numerical model is calibrated with experimental data and good agreement is observed. The simulation results show that combustion characteristics and engine performances differ when vegetable oil is used instead of no. 2 diesel fuel. Raising the injection pressure significantly alters the combustion characteristics without improving the brake performances. However, higher injection pressure does reduce both NOx emission and combustion noise.

Hydrodynamic torque converter parameter integrated optimization design system is established based on tri-dimensional flow field theory. Design segments such as optimization initial values searching by meanline theory, cascade solid modeling, structure mesh of flow passage, CFD(computational fluid dynamics), DOE(design of experiment), RSM(response surface model)and optimization algorithm are integrated in this system and therefore a three dimensional optimization design method for hydrodynamic torque converter is presented and realized. An optimization design instance is accomplished by workstation computer cluster, and its result shows that speed and accuracy of design are improved and design system based on 3D flow field theory is accurate and effective.

Performances of a centrifugal turbocharger compressor are investigated and validated in this paper. Based on the validation results, numerical optimizations are performed using ANN and CFD methods. Different impeller geometry with free parameters controlling stacking laws, end-wall, blade sectional camber curves and corresponding performances are used as input layer of ANN in the optimization, while adiabatic total-to-total efficiency and total pressure ratio are used as output layer of the optimization cycle. With this method, the performances of the compressor investigated in this paper are improved notably.

This present paper described an experimental study on the combustion and emission characteristics of a diesel engine at idle at different altitudes. Five altitudes ranging from 550m to up to 4500m were investigated. Combustion parameters including in-cylinder pressure and temperature, heat release, fuel mass burning and so forth, together with emission factors including CO, HC, NOx and PM were tested and analyzed. The result of on-board measurement manifested that in-cylinder pressure descended consistently with the rising of altitude, while both the maximum in-cylinder temperature and exhaust temperature ascended with the altitude. It was found that ignition delay was lengthened at higher altitude, but the combustion duration became shorter. The crank angle towards 90% fuel burnt has hardly changed with the variation of altitude. As for heat release, the difference of slopes observed at different altitudes was quite slight.

In this paper, the finite element model for static analysis of an electric tractor's frame is presented firstly, and the rigidity and strength of one electric tractor's frame is calculated. Based upon the analysis results, the topology and shape of this electric tractor's frame is optimized. As to the topology optimization, the optimization goal under multiple load cases is defined and the frame is optimized by two steps-one is to determine the position of the transverse rails using solid elements which can simulate the material-filling space, another is to obtain the shape of the frame in which shell elements are applied as to increase the calculation efficiency. After the topology optimization the frame's stiffness is improved significantly but there still is local stress concentration. So the shape of the stress concentration area is optimized using control points method, and the greatest stress is reduced below the strength limits.

The high strength-weight ratio and high damping capability of Magnesium alloys implies significant potentials for improving fuel efficiency and vehicle performance with the use Mg wheels. In this paper, a brief review is given of the current state of art in Mg wheel production, followed by a summary of the mechanical and casting properties of Mg alloys. The difficulties that hinder the wide use of Mg wheels are discussed. The R&D activities in China in the fields of Mg wheel design and casting are described. The focus of this paper is on the design and the development of a new squeeze casting process that makes it feasible to produce high-quality Mg wheels with cost efficiency. Finally, the expected commercial use of Mg wheels in the near future in Chinese motorbikes is outlined.