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A mixed time-scale subgrid large eddy simulation was used to simulate mixture formation, combustion and soot formation under the influence of turbulence during diesel engine combustion. To account for the effects of engine wall heat transfer on combustion, the KIVA code's standard wall model was replaced to accommodate more realistic boundary conditions. This were carried out by implementing the non-isothermal wall model of Angelberger et al. with modifications and incorporating the log law from Pope's method to account for the wall surface roughness. Soot and NOx emissions predicted with the new model are compared to experimental data acquired under various EGR conditions.

The aim of this research was to find vehicle characteristics including stiffness that is effective for compatibility performance. Compatibility is said to be affected by three factors: vehicle mass, geometry and stiffness (1, 2). Of these factors, stiffness has more flexibility at the design stage than vehicle mass and geometry which are limited by the vehicle application. However, the stiffness is assumed to have a conflict issue between the self-protection and the partner-protection (3). In this research, it was analyzed comprehensively how some defined factors such as stiffness, mass, crash stroke and other vehicle characteristics indices relate to each occupant injury rate of the case and its partner vehicle in the real-world accidents. Both “front-to-front” and “front-to-side” crash occupants were covered.

Continuous improvement of side airbag safety performance is an important step because it is associated with many public domain tests and regulations. Thus, occupant restraint with a side airbag is critical and it is necessary to develop tools that can be utilized to help in design of side airbags. Though many papers on side impact safety have been published, only a few papers are related to MADYMO simulations of side airbags. This paper describes an improved injury prediction and optimization approach using a MADYMO model for side impact. This model consists of 3 parts: dummy, trim and airbag in FEM. In this study, a side impact with a ES-2, EuroSID-2, was simulated in MADYMO as follows: First, component tests were conducted for trim and airbag respectively to establish correlation. Second, these component models were then integrated into a MADYMO model, which has high correlation with a crash simulator that is capable of replicating physical vehicle tests.

Development of anti-whiplash technology is one of the hottest issues in the automotive safety field because of the frequent occurrence of rear impact accidents. We analyzed the whiplash mechanism and conducted a study to seek the optimized seat characteristics with BioRID II and MADYMO simulations. A parameter study was made to construct a conceptual theory to decrease NIC, Neck Injury Criteria, with the MADYMO model. As a result of the study, head restraint position and seatback stiffness were found to affect dummy movement and injury values. Applying the NIC mechanism and the influential parameters to the MADYMO model, the optimized seat characteristics for whiplash prevention were obtained.

The newly developed rotary engine has achieved major progress in high performance, improved fuel economy and clean exhaust gas by innovative action. The engine of the next generation is named RENESIS, which stands for “The RE (Rotary Engine)'s GENESIS” or the rotary engine for the new millennium. The peripheral exhaust port of the previous rotary engine is replaced by a side exhaust port system in the RENESIS. This allows for an increase in the intake port area, thus producing higher power. Exhaust opening timing is retarded to improve thermal efficiency. The side exhaust port also allows reducing the internal EGR, stabilizing the combustion at idling. The improved thermal efficiency and the stabilized idle combustion result in higher fuel economy. In addition, the side exhaust port allows a reduction of the HC mass, realizing reduced exhaust gas emission.

To reduce real world fatal/serious/minor injuries, factors causing such injuries should be investigated in depth from wider perspectives. The aim of this paper is to clarify the factors based on Japanese accident database compiled by ITARDA (Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis). ITARDA database has data for injury rates, seatbelt use rate of driver and age of driver involved in crashes, etc. by vehicle model. As a result of an elaborate statistical analysis, the most influential and essential factors on all injuries including fatality were quantitatively found to be seatbelt use rate and vehicle weight. The increase by 1% in seatbelt use rate makes injury rate decrease by 7%. The influence of vehicle weight is 1.7 times higher than seatbelt use rate. Multiple regression analysis on these two parameters was also conducted. The present analysis successfully predicted all injury rates by model per 10,000 units.

On-road turbulences caused by sources such as atmospheric wind and other vehicles influence the flow field and increases the drag in a vehicle. In this study, we focused on a scenario involving a passing vehicle and investigated its effect on the physical mechanism of the drag increase in order to establish a technique for reducing this drag. Firstly, we conducted on-road measurements of two sedan-type vehicles passed by a truck. Their aerodynamic drag estimated from the base pressure measurements showed different increment when passed by the truck. This result raised the possibility of reducing the drag increase by a modification of the local geometry. Then, we conducted wind tunnel measurements of a simplified one-fifth scale vehicle model in quasi-steady state, in order to understand the flow mechanism of the drag increase systematically.

Driver fatality rate of a passenger vehicle is considerably high when struck on the side by an LTV (light truck and van). Aggressivity of LTVs, particularly in side crashes, needs to be reduced to improve this incompatible situation. Crash energy absorption share of a passenger car struck on the side by an LTV was measured through component tests. As a result, B-pillar of the struck passenger car was found to receive most of the crash energy intensively. This intensive energy triggered large B-pillar deformation. Computer simulation proved that B-pillar deformation was closely related to occupant injury. The key to mitigate the injury of side-struck car occupant, therefore, is to disperse crash energy to other structural parts than B-pillar. Front-end structures of LTVs that realize crash energy dispersion were designed and examined. The structures include (a) optimization of the vehicle height, and (b) adoption of a forward-extended sub-frame.

This paper describes results of the correlation tests between several full-scale automotive wind tunnels in Japan. The tests were carried out during FY 2003 by members of the working group for wind tunnel correlation test, which was organized in JSAE Vehicle Aerodynamics Research Committee. Five wind tunnels were selected, i.e., three open test section type wind tunnels and two closed ones. Four test models were selected, i.e., sedan, station wagon, minivan and hatch back car, all of which are current production models. Tests were done with EADE test conditions. Correlation formulas for drag coefficient, which are based on the previous methods by Mercker and Wiedemann [13] and Mercker [3, 10] respectively for open and closed test section type wind tunnels, were used. Also considered were the differences of the boundary layer thickness between five wind tunnels.

Three-dimensional flows around a vehicle-like bluff body (Ahmed's body) in ground proximity were computed by directly integrating the governing unsteady, incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. A well-established finite-difference procedure was used. The basic equations were formulated in a generalized coordinate system. A third-order upwind scheme was applied to discretize the equations, and the numerical solutions were acquired without any explicit turbulence models. Computations were performed at a high Reynolds number, Re=106 (based on the body length). In order to investigate the influence of the base slant angle, computations were performed for three base slant angles, i.e., 12.5 °, 25 °and 30 °. Extensive flow visualizations, using state-of-the-art computer graphics, were carried out. The present numerical results were found to be in broad agreement with the experiments of Ahmed.

In order to secure effective occupant protection at vehicle collisions, it is necessary to conduct close examination into vehicle crash characteristics as well as interior parts, etc. This paper analyzes the behavior of a HYBRID III dummy restrained by three point seatbelt using MVMA2D computer simulation program at a 35 mph vehicle frontal barrier crash. As a result, it is found for good agreement between experiment and simulation that the exact input data of successive toeboard intrusion play an important role. As for the parametric study on vehicle crashworthiness, the authors propose the convenient method to represent the actual crash pulse by two simplified trapezoids. Then using these trapezoids, the parametric study clarifies the influence of vehicle deformation characteristics as well as the interior parts on dummy injury.

The reduced chemical reaction scheme which can take the effect of major fuel components on auto ignition timing into account has been developed. This reaction scheme was based on the reduced reaction mechanism for the primary reference fuels (PRF) proposed by Tsurushima [1] with 33 species and 38 reactions. Some pre-exponential factors were modified by using Particle Swarm Optimization to match the ignition delay time versus reciprocal temperature which was calculated by the detailed scheme with 2,301 species and 11,116 elementary chemical reactions. The result using the present reaction scheme shows good agreements with that using the detailed scheme for the effects of EGR, fuel components, and radical species on the ignition timing under homogeneous charge compression ignition combustion (HCCI) conditions.

Of the injuries sustained by belted rear occupants in a frontal collision event in Japan, the neck and the head are the regions of the body most likely to be injured, while children and female occupants are accounting for the highest rate of injuries. For the purpose of reducing rear seat occupant injuries, the occurrence mechanism of neck and head injuries is clarified by sled tests with the current rear seat belt system. When a high load is applied to the occupant via the seat belt, the occupant experiences sudden deceleration of the chest, resulting in a great relative velocity difference between the head and the chest. This causes injury to the occupant's neck and head. To reduce occupant injuries, therefore, it is important to minimize the relative velocity difference by control of belt load.

This paper clarifies aggressivity reduction approach for MPV, Multi-Purpose Vehicles, derived from large passenger vehicles toward small passenger vehicles. The effects of aggressivity-reducing approach were measured through full-frontal rigid barrier crash simulations with TRL aluminum honeycomb by Finite Element Method. The front-end structures of large vehicles studied in this paper based on this aggressivity reduction approach show good front-end homogeneity and low average height of force. The structures were also found to effectively reduce aggressivity toward small vehicles by car-to-car simulation. However, there are some cases where the effect was influenced by overlap ratios. From this result, overlap ratio is considered to be one of the important factors to improve compatibility performance.

In the present study, two kinds of simplified vehicle models, which can reproduce flow structures around the two sedan-type vehicles in the previous study, are constructed for the object and the unsteady flow structures are extracted using Large-Eddy Simulation technique. The numerical results are validated in a stationary condition by comparing the results with a wind-tunnel experiment and details of steady and unsteady flow characteristics around the models, especially above the trunk deck, are investigated. In quasi- and non- stationary manner with regard to vehicle pitch motion, unsteady flow characteristics are also investigated and their relations to an aerodynamic stability are discussed.

This study shows an example in which the conventional aerodynamic evaluation method that focuses on “steady” aerodynamic lift coefficient is not necessarily sufficient to evaluate vehicle's straight-ahead stability at high speed, and proposes a new aerodynamic evaluation method for vehicle stability. In vehicle development, it is generally said that vehicle with lower aerodynamic lift coefficient has better straight-ahead stability at high speed. However, in some cases, straight-ahead stability differs between two vehicles with similar low aerodynamic lift coefficient. It is natural to think that this variation is caused by the difference of suspension characteristics or vehicle body rigidity. But from our experiences, different straight-ahead stability was observed between two vehicles having same suspension characteristics, same vehicle body rigidity and almost similar aerodynamic lift coefficient, but different vehicle configurations.