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This paper proposes a rolling machine that forms fine corrugated section patterns for thin sheets. A prototype of the machine was made and the performance of the machine was tested. As compared with press forming, rolling has the advantages of the high forming limit, the low forming reaction force, the easy control of the thin sheet's curve and high productivity. We confirmed these four advantages by using finite element analyses and the prototype rolling machine. Stainless steel sheets and titanium sheets, which were one of the materials with a low forming limit, were used. Firstly, the rolling showed a 1.3-times higher forming limit than the press forming in the case that a fine corrugated section pattern was formed in a stainless steel sheet of 22-mm square sizes. Secondly, the forming reaction force of the rolling was about one-twentieth of the press forming without coining, and the experimental results agreed with the finite element simulation.

Since the sizes of the flywheel and clutch have been enlarged due to downsizing of diesel engines, the mass and moment of inertia at the crankshaft rear end have increased. Consequently, the serious bending stresses have appeared in the crankshaft rear. This paper describes the characteristics of those serious bending stresses, based on the mechanism for whirl resonance. The whirl resonance is largely impacted by the mass of the flywheel and clutch and by the distance from the crank-journal center of the rear end to the center of gravity of the flywheel and clutch.

Improving idle sound quality as well as reducing idle noise level is increasingly demanded for diesel engines. Therefore, unusual noise occurrence at idle is a serious problem, and the noise must be removed. This paper describes the characteristics and mechanism of ticking noise that is unusual noise radiated from the journal bearing of the camshaft at low idle speeds, based on the mechanism of cavitation in oil film existing between the journal and bearing.

Using skirt-liner clearance and cylinder pressure measurements provided by Isuzu Motors, Ltd. of a production type gasoline automotive engine, a validation study was done of Ricardo's PISDYN code, which predicts the secondary motions and skirt liner elastohydrodynamic lubrication of pistons. Predictions using the computer code of the skirt liner clearance at two locations on the skirt were compared with measured results. Using the code, parametric studies were done. Very good qualitative and quantitative agreement was found for the baseline cases. In the parametric studies using the code only, the following were found: The predicted clearances were very sensitive to variation in cold minimum clearance. The effect of cylinder induced pressure deformation was significant, especially near the point of peak cylinder pressure. Increasing the cylinder pressure increased the peak clearances. Changing the asperity roughness height affected the clearances near a point of asperity contact only.

The noise of diesel engines operating at low idle is an important noise evaluation criterion in both commercial vehicles and passenger cars. At low idle, a quiet, pleasant noise is required. Accordingly, unusual noise occurrence at low speed is a serious problem, and the noise must be prevented. In this paper, characteristics of the stick-slip noise, which is an unusual noise that radiates from the oil seal at low idle and the generating mechanism of the stick-slip noise in the six-cylinder-inline diesel engine are discussed. In addition, a method to prevent the stick-slip noise is presented.

The application of tailored blanks to autobody parts has progressed because of its numerous advantages. The forming of tailored blanks has, however, a lot of technical problems. Among the problems, weld-line movement and formability deterioration are the most significant ones in case of deep drawing. The weld-line movement and formability change were examined experimentally as a function of weld-line location in square cup deep drawing. The weld-line movement of tailored blank consists of two sources. One is the geometrical reason, and the other is due to the hardening of weld bead. The formability of tailored blank is inferior to that of an original blank by the existence of hardened weld region. The mode of fracture changes from wall breakage to a fracture adjacent to punch radius when the weld-line was close to the punch corner.

Countour Induction Hardening (CIH) method is in the limelight as a new possible surface refining method for gears as it reduces quenching distortion considerably and increases compressive residual stress. Also, Double Shot Peening (DSP) method, especially its advanced technique of using extensively small shots (less than 100 m) at the secondary peening, enables increased compressive residual stress under the surface of the gears. Therefore, the new Compound Surface Refining Method of using CIH + DSP is expected to give much higher compressive residual stress than the conventional methods. On studying the application of this new method, the authors evaluated their surface-refining characteristics and the fatigue limits.

A torsional damper is attached to a crankshaft to control the torsional vibration of the crankshaft system. However, the damper, which has a rubber part in between a damper mass and a damper hub, possesses a three-dimensional inertia moment and an inertia mass that could excite the crankshaft system. This paper discusses the generating mechanisms of the bending strain on the bolt to fasten the damper hub to the crankshaft, from the measured bolt strains and the measured behavior of the damper mass and the damper hub under the engine operating conditions.

With society demanding automobiles that provide higher fuel efficiency, safety of occupants in collisions and that at the end of their service life can be recycled with low environmental impact, the steel industry is tackling the needs of the automobile industry by developing ever-higher performance steel materials and simulation technologies that can demonstrate the performance of steel materials at the development stage without the need for costly prototype testing. In this paper, weight reduction of automobile body in Japan will be discussed. The main items will be as follows: (1) Development of Automobile Steel Sheets, (2) Materials for Automobile Bodies, (3) Materials and Technologies (Tailored Blanks, Hydroforming and Locally Quenching) for Reducing the Weight of Panels and Reinforcing members, (4) Future Prospects.

Supercharging system is obviously a necessary technology for heavy duty vehicular diesel to meet future stringent emission regulation as well as to improve fuel consumption characteristics. Although the conventional exhaust turbocharger system improves fuel consumption, there are some problems such as having a difficulty in improving starting acceleration and smoke emission characteristic because the response of an exhaust supercharger is not enough. On the other hand, the conventional mechanical supercharging system seems to be a quite effective aid for acceleration ability. However, it does not satisfy demand for low fuel consumption characteristic.

A method of fatigue life prediction of spot welded joint under multi-axial loads has been developed by fatigue life estimation working groups in the committee on fatigue strength and structural reliability of JSAE. This method is based on the concept of nominal structural stress ( σ ns) proposed by Radaj and Rupp, and improved so that D value is not involved in stress calculation. The result of fatigue life estimation of actual vehicle with nominal structural stress which was calculated through newly developed method had very good correlation with the result of multi-axial loads fatigue test carried out with test piece including high strength steel.

New 440MPa class high-strength steel, which had high r-value(1.6) and elongation(38%), was applied to outer-panel for the first time in the world. In this development FEM simulation was carried out to clarify the necessary steel properties, and the production conditions in strip mill were established. 10-kg weight reduction was realized by using this steel.

In this paper the fatigue life of welded steel sheet structures is predicted by using FE-Fatigue, which is one of fatigue analysis software tools on the market, and these predicted results are evaluated by reference to corresponding experimental results. Also, we try to predict these structures by using two fatigue life prediction theories established by the JSAE fatigue and reliability committee to compare prediction results. It was confirmed that spot welds fatigue life predictions agree qualitatively with corresponding experimental results and arc welds fatigue life predictions are in good agreement with corresponding experimental results in cases where the SN curve database is modified appropriately.

The main operations for the manufacturing of auto parts are the cutting of the flange and the stamping. In order to perform accurate fatigue calculation it is necessary to have the material properties for each point of the structure. Usually, only the fatigue curve obtained on the flat sheet with polished edges is used because it represents the basic metal behaviour. The real edge quality decreases the fatigue limit while the hardening induced by the stamping increases it. To take these effects into account allows a better fatigue calculation of the structural part.

Engine crankshafts have been designed to avoid low-harmonic-order resonant torsional vibration in a commonly-used engine speed range, but the authors have found that, in some engines, especially turbo-charged engines, a significant degree of a low-harmonic-order exciting torque acts on the crankshaft. In these engines, the amplitude of non-resonant low-harmonic-order torsional vibration is almost as large as that of the resonant one. The authors conclude that the 3rd-order non-resonant torsional amplitude is not only significant but also characteristic of the turbo-charged engine in comparison with the naturally-aspirated engine, and recommend that crankshafts on turbo-charged diesel engines should be made stiffer than those on naturally-aspirated engines.

In order to examine the compatibility of improvement of crashworthiness with weight saving of automobiles by using high strength steel, a combination analysis of Finite Element Method and Dynamic Mechanical Properties has been established. Material properties used in this analysis have been measured by “one bar method” high velocity tensile tests, which can examine the deformation behavior of materials at a bend crush speed range (∼55km/h). It was confirmed that the strength of steel measured by one bar method was raised remarkably after press and hydro forming of high strength steels. It was also confirmed by FEM analysis and load drop test that absorbed energy of bend crush was improved by pre-strain effect. Further, we proved that absorbed energy of bend crush was also improved by appropriate design of thickness and the ratio of bend span and plate length. These effects are applicable to respective high strength steels.

In order to quantitatively evaluate mechanical durability of metal substrates for catalytic converters under heat cycles, thermal stresses and strains were simulated by FEM elastic-plastic analysis. Flat and corrugated sheets constituting honeycomb structures were directly modeled by thick-shell elements without replacing the structures with equivalent solid elements. It was reported that an asymmetric joint structure with “Strengthened Outer Layer” could provide metal substrates with high mechanical durability against heat cycles and the results of analysis in this study could show their high durability. It is important for improvement of mechanical durability to control the location of initial cracks generation and the direction of their propagation.

The influence of tensile strength on fatigue strength and the effect of strengthening mechanism on fatigue notch factor were investigated into conventional mild steels, HSLA steels, DP steels and TRIP steels. The grade of studied steels was altered from 440MPa to 780MPa. Not only smooth fatigue specimens with side surface ground and smooth fatigue specimens with laser-cut side surface but also fatigue specimens with a pierced hole were prepared for each of steel sheets. Fatigue tests were conducted in an axial load method. These experiments made it clear that the fatigue limits of smooth specimen increase along the tensile strength approximately independent of strengthening mechanism but those of notched specimen do not necessarily increase along the tensile strength. Namely, fatigue limits of DP steels and TRIP steels with notch increase in proportion to tensile strength although those of HSLA steels with notch do not increase.

The newly developed sheet steel lightly coated with an organic composite is as follows. Zn-Ni alloy plated sheet steel with a coating weight of 30 g/m2 and average Ni concentration of 11.5 ∼12.0 % is chromated through electrolysis. The coating weight of chromate film is 50 ∼90 mg/m2 in Cr. Furthermore, emulsified olefin-acrylic acid copolymer resin mixed with colloidal silica of particle size 7 ∼8 nm applied to a thickness of 1.0 ∼1.8 μm. Olefin-acrylic acid copolymer resin and colloidal silica are mixed at the rate of 100 and 30 (parts by weight). It maintains excellent corrosion resistance even after forming, C-ED paint corrosion resistance and paint adhesion. Furthermore, it has excellent perforation resistance. The product has excellent weldability and is well suited to continuous forming, too.

As a demand for vehicles of higher functionality grows, automakers and material suppliers are devoting increasing efforts to develop technologies for greater safety, lighter weight, higher corrosion resistance, and enhanced quietness. The resin-sandwiched vibration damping steel sheet (VDSS), developed as a highly functional material for reducing vehicle vibration and noise, has been used for oil pans1) and compartment partitions2). First applied for a structural dash panel of the new Mazda 929, a Zn-Ni electroplated VDSS which allows direct electric welding has contributed to greater weight reduction as well as improved quietness.