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The increasingly complex products and intelligent environment in automotive and transportation technology need to employ the intelligent tools called robots. To be able to solve a difficult and complex problem robot needs to cooperate with other robots. In this process experts from different disciplines utilize different form of knowledge that requires knowledge integration. In order to facilitate knowledge integration one of the forms of visualization can be used. Visual thinking is strictly connected with understanding of the visual forms. The aim of this research is to investigate the visual thinking capabilities of the intelligent systems in different aspects of the problem solving and communication abilities. This research is continuation of the authors previous work focused on investigating understanding capabilities of the intelligent systems based on the shape understanding system (SUS).

The aim of this study was to assess the crash injury benefits of an Automatic Emergency Braking System (AEBS), for the passenger vehicle population in France. These benefits were examined in regards to the number/proportion of fatalities and serious injured crashes that could be saved per annum. The two crash types investigated included pedestrian crashes and rear-end collisions. AEBS was expected to intervene 0.6sec prior to the crash and at published levels of force according to whether braking previously occurred and the road condition/surface adherence. The analysis involved national crash data, BAAC, collected by the French Ministry of transport, in-depth crash data made available from the European EACS (European Accident Causation Survey) database by LAB, as well as findings from the U.S. NASS/CDS and NHTSA PCDS in-depth databases. A step-wise methodology was used to calculate the crash injury benefits of AEBS across the two crash types.

The paper presents an integrated software tool for the hydroplaning simulation based on a weak coupled fluid-structure interaction model. The integrated modules are a flow solver FINE™/Hexa designed to solve the complex two-phase flow surrounding the tire numerically, based on unstructured hexahedral grids, the FEM solver MSC.Marc/MSC.Mentat which predicts the transients of the tire's structure, a coupling module for efficient and accurate transfer of the essential variables between the flow and FEM solvers and a deformation module which handles the CFD unstructured mesh to match the external surface of the tire. The accuracy of each module and the robustness of the integrated software are validated by the computational results obtained for rigid and deformable tires over a large range of speeds.

This paper introduces and discusses a new 2D physical model which has been developed and validated in order to study and optimize the handling behavior of the tire. It can be divided into two parts, the structural model and the contact area model. The parameters, that are function of the vertical load, are identified or calculated by comparison with the results provided by 3D finite element models. The input data for the identification procedure consist of a set of frequency responses performed on the finite element model. A second set of simulations on the 3D model of the tread pattern gives the characteristics of the contact model. Once built the 2D model it is easy to carry out both steady state and transient analysis. The steady state analysis returns the cornering carpet, in terms of lateral force and self-aligning moment as function of the cornering angle. The transient analysis allows the evaluation of the relaxation length and dynamic characteristics.

Modeling the combustion process of a diesel-biodiesel fuel spray in a 3-dimensional (3D) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) domain remains challenging and time-consuming despite the recent advancement in computing technologies. Accurate representation of the in-cylinder processes is essential for CFD studies to provide invaluable insights into these events, which are typically limited when using conventional experimental measurement techniques. This is especially true for emerging new fuels such as biodiesels since fundamental understanding of these fuels under combusting environment is still largely unknown. The reported work here is dedicated to evaluating the Adaptive Local Mesh Refinement (ALMR) approach in OpenFOAM® for improved simulation of reacting biodiesel fuel spray. An in-house model for thermo-physical and transport properties is integrated to the code, along with a chemical mechanism comprising 113 species and 399 reactions.

The durability performance of brake hoses is a crucial issue for such components. Accelerated fatigue testing of brake hoses is necessary for understanding achievable lifetime, actually computation of durability is quite cumbersome due to the many different materials the hoses are made from. Despite SAE standards are available, accelerated testing of brake hoses subject to actual torsional and bending stresses seem important to provide relevant feedback to designers. In this paper, an innovative methodology for assessing the fatigue behavior of brake hoses of road vehicles is proposed. A dynamic testbed is specifically designed and realized, able to reproduce the actual assembly conditions of the hoses fitted into a vehicle suspension. The designed testbed allows to replicate actual loading conditions on the brake hoses by simulating the vertical dynamics and steering of the suspension system together with brake pressure.