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Noise concerns regarding snowmobiles have increased in the recent past. Current standards, such as SAE J192 are used as guidelines for government agencies and manufacturers to regulate noise emissions for all manufactured snowmobiles. Unfortunately, the test standards available today produce results with variability that is much higher than desired. The most significant contributor to the variation in noise measurements is the test surface. The test surfaces can either be snow or grass and affects the measurement in two very distinct ways: sound propagation from the source to the receiver and the operational behavior of the snowmobile. Data is presented for a known sound pressure speaker source and different snowmobiles on various test days and test surfaces. Relationships are shown between the behavior of the sound propagation and track interaction to the ground with the pass-by noise measurements.

High pressure diesel sprays were visualized under vaporizing and combusting conditions in a constant-volume combustion vessel. Near-simultaneous visualization of vapor and liquid phase fuel distribution were acquired using a hybrid shadowgraph/Mie-scattering imaging setup. This imaging technique used two pulsed LED's operating in an alternative manner to provide proper light sources for both shadowgraph and Mie scattering. In addition, combustion cases under the same ambient conditions were visualized through high-speed combustion luminosity measurement. Two single-hole diesel injectors with same nozzle diameters (100μm) but different k-factors (k0 and k1.5) were tested in this study. Detailed analysis based on spray penetration rate curves, rate of injection measurements, combustion indicators and 1D model comparison have been performed.

Despite numerous research efforts, there is no reliable and widely accepted tool for the prediction of erosion prone material surfaces due to collapse of cavitation bubbles. In the present paper an Erosion Aggressiveness Index (EAI) is proposed, based on the pressure loads which develop on the material surface and the material yield stress. EAI depends on parameters of the liquid quality and includes the fourth power of the maximum bubble radius and the bubble size number density distribution. Both the newly proposed EAI and the Cavitation Aggressiveness Index (CAI), which has been previously proposed by the authors based on the total derivative of pressure at locations of bubble collapse (DP/Dt>0, Dα/Dt<0), are computed for a cavitating flow orifice, for which experimental and numerical results on material erosion have been published. The predicted surface area prone to cavitation damage, as shown by the CAI and EAI indexes, is correlated with the experiments.

Software systems on electronically controlled diesel truck engines typically provide diagnostic features to enable the engine mechanic to identify and debug system problems. As future systems become more sophisticated, so will the diagnostic requirements. The advantages of serviceability and accuracy found in todays electronic systems must not be allowed to degrade due to this increased sophistication. One method of maintaining a high level of serviceability and accuracy is to place an even greater priority on diagnostics and servicing in the initial design phase of the product than is done today. In particular, three major goals of future diagnostic systems should be separation of component failures from system failures, prognostication of failures and analysis of engine performance. This paper will discuss a system to realize these goals by dividing the diagnostic task into the Electronic System Diagnostics, Engine System Diagnostics and the Diagnostic Interface.

The Kalman and Vold-Kalman order tracking filters have been implemented in commercial software since the early 90's. There are several mathematical formulations of filters that have been implemented by different software vendors. However, there have not been any papers that have been published which sufficiently explain the math behind these filters and discuss the actual implementations of the filters in software. In addition, upon generating the equations represented by these filters, solving the equations for datasets in excess of several hundred thousand datapoints is not trivial and has not been discussed in the literature. The papers which have attempted to cover these topics are generally vague and overly mathematically eloquent but not easily understandable by a practicing engineer.

Technical groups worldwide have been actively developing specifications and requirements for biodegradable hydraulic fluids for mobile applications. These groups have recognized that an industry-wide specification is necessary due to the increase in environmental awareness in the agriculture, construction, forestry, and mining industries, and to the increasing number of local regulations primarily throughout Europe. Caterpillar has responded to this need by publishing a requirement, Caterpillar BF-1, that may be used by Caterpillar dealers, customers, and industry to help select high-performance biodegradable hydraulic fluids. This requirement was written with the input of several organizations that are known to be involved with the development of similar types of specifications and requirements.

As noise concerns for snowmobiles become of greater interest for governing bodies, standards such as SAE J192 are implemented for regulation. Specific to this pass-by noise standard, and unlike many other pass-by tests, multiple non-standardized test surfaces are allowed to be used. Manufacturers must understand how the machines behave during these tests to know how to best improve the measured noise levels. Data is presented that identifies the contributions of different sources for different snowmobiles on various test surface conditions. Adaptive resampling for Doppler removal, frequency response functions and order tracking methods are implemented in order to best understand what components affect the overall measurement during the pass-by noise test.

The discrete droplet model is widely used to describe two-phase flows such as high-velocity dense sprays. The interaction between the liquid and the gas phase is modeled via appropriate source terms in the gas phase equations. This approach can lead to a strong dependence of the liquid-gas coupling on the spatial resolution of the gas phase. The liquid-gas coupling requires the computation of source terms using the gas phase properties, and, subsequently, these sources are then distributed onto the gas phase mesh. In this study, a Lagrange polynomial interpolation method has been developed to evaluate the source terms and also to distribute these source terms onto the gas mesh. The focus of this investigation has been on the momentum exchange between the two phases. The Lagrange polynomial interpolation and source term distribution methods are evaluated for non-evaporating sprays using KIVA3 as a modeling platform.

This paper analyzes the control of the series-parallel powersplit used in the 2001 Michigan Tech FutureTruck. An electronic throttle controller is implemented and a new control algorithm is proposed and tested. A vehicle simulation has been created in MATLAB and the control algorithm implemented within the simulation. A program written in C has also been created that implements the control algorithm in the test vehicle. The results from both the simulation and test vehicle are presented and discussed and show a 15% increase in fuel economy. With the increase in fuel economy, and through the use of the original exhaust after treatment, lower emissions are also expected.

The NOx reduction performance under lean conditions over γ-alumina was evaluated using a micro-reactor system and a non-thermal plasma-equipped bench test system. Various alumina samples were obtained from alumina manufacturers to assess commercial alumina materials. In addition, γ-alumina samples were synthesized at Caterpillar with a sol-gel technique in order to control alumina properties. The deNOx performances of the alumina samples were compared. The alumina samples were characterized with analytical techniques such as inductively coupled plasma (ICP) emission spectroscopy, temperature programmed desorption (TPD) and surface area measurements (BET) to understand physical and chemical properties. The information derived from these techniques was correlated with the NOx reduction performance to identify key parameters of γ-alumina for optimizing materials for lean-NOx and plasma assisted catalysis.

Most of the history of systems engineering has been focused on processes for engineering a single complex system. However, most large enterprises design, manufacture, operate, sell, or support not one product but multiple product lines of related but varying systems. They seek to optimize time to market, costs of development and production, leverage of intellectual assets, best use of talented human resources, overall competitiveness, overall profitability and productivity. Optimizing globally across multiple product lines does not follow from treating each system family member as an independently engineered system or product. Traditional systems engineering principles can be generalized to apply to families. This article includes a multi-year case study of the actual use of a generic model-based systems engineering methodology for families, Systematica™, across the embedded electronic systems products of one of the world's largest manufacturers of heavy equipment.

The characteristics of combustion knock metrics over a number of engine cycles can be an essential reference for knock detection and control in internal combustion engines. In a Spark-Ignition (SI) engine, the stochastic nature of combustion knock has been shown to follow a log-normal distribution. However, this has been derived from experiments done with gasoline only and applicability of log-normal distribution to dual-fuel combustion knock has not been explored. To evaluate the effectiveness and accuracy of log-normal distributed knock model for methane-gasoline blended fuel, a sweep of methane-gasoline blend ratio was conducted at two different engine speeds. Experimental investigation was conducted on a single cylinder prototype SI engine equipped with two fuel systems: a direct injection (DI) system for gasoline and a port fuel injection (PFI) system for methane.

The paper describes an experimental activity on the spatial and temporal liquid- and vapor-phase distributions of diesel fuel at engine-like conditions. The influence of the k-factor (0 and 1.5) of a single-hole axial-disposed injector (0.100 mm diameter and 10 L/d ratio) has been studied by spraying fuel in an optically-accessible constant-volume combustion vessel. A high-speed imaging system, capable of acquiring Mie-scattering and Schlieren images in a near simultaneous fashion mode along the same line of sight, has been developed at the Michigan Technological University using a high-speed camera and a pulsed-wave LED system. The time resolved pair of schlieren and Mie-scattering images identifies the instantaneous position of both the vapor and liquid phases of the fuel spray, respectively. The studies have been performed at three injection pressures (70, 120 and 180 MPa), 23.9 kg/m3 ambient gas density and 900 K gas temperature in the vessel.

An open architecture of electronic controls and monitors has been conceived and developed to meet marine application requirements and provide vessel control features. Integration of this system reduces the number of components, improves reliability, and eases installation and troubleshooting. The architecture provides the plan for system integration, while allowing flexibility for customer component selection, system technology upgrades, and expansion with additional features. Serial links are used to provide the data channels within the modular style architecture and the communication ports to share information with the operators.

As both the number and complexity of electronic control system applications on earthmoving equipment and on-highway trucks increase, so does the effort associated with developing and maintaining control strategies implemented in embedded systems. A new tool was recently introduced by Sigma Technology of Ann Arbor, Michigan, that provides the capability to perform rapid prototyping of production embedded systems. The rapid prototyping process includes system modeling, control algorithm synthesis, simulation analysis, source code generation and vehicle implementation. The results of incorporating this tool in the control system design process include improved control performance, improved system reliability/robustness, and significantly reduced development/maintenance costs.

Combustion knock detection and control in internal combustion engines continues to be an important feature in engine management systems. In spark-ignition engine applications, the frequency of occurrence of combustion knock and its intensity are controlled through a closed-looped feedback system to maintain knock at levels that do not cause engine damage or objectionable audible noise. Many methods for determination of the feedback signal for combustion knock in spark-ignition internal combustion engines have been employed with the most common technique being measurement of engine vibration using an accelerometer. With this technique single or multiple piezoelectric accelerometers are mounted on the engine and vibrations resulting from combustion knock and other sources are converted to electrical signals. These signals are input to the engine control unit and are processed to determine the signal strength during a period of crank-angle when combustion knock is expected.

Today's advanced technology engines have a high content of electronic actuation requiring sophisticated real-time embedded software sensing and control. To enable research on such engines, a system with a flexible engine control unit (ECU) that can be rapidly configured and programmed is desired. Such a system is being used in the Advanced Internal Combustion Engine (AICE) Laboratories at Michigan Tech University (MTU) for research on a multi-cylinder spark-ignited gasoline, a high pressure common rail diesel and a single cylinder alternative fuels research engine. The system combines a production ECU with a software development system utilizing Mathworks Simulink/Stateflow © modeling tools. The interface in the Simulink modeling environment includes a library of modeling and interface blocks to the production Operating System (OS), Low Level Drivers (LLD) and CAN-based calibration tool.

The Society of Automotive Engineers' (SAE) Clean Snowmobile Challenge (CSC) 2005 was hosted by Michigan Technological University (MTU) in Houghton, Michigan during the week of March 14, 2005. The events were held at the Keweenaw Research Center (KRC), a research arm of MTU. With energy prices on the rise and pollution regulations tightening, efficient and clean modes of transportation are becoming more important. The emissions, noise, and fuel economy events are all significant portions of this year's competition. MTU has hosted the Clean Snowmobile Challenge for the past three years, during which there have been numerous modifications to the events and logistics of the competition to make the experience as beneficial as possible. This paper looks at not only the results from the 2005 competition, but also discusses trends and common design strategies that the winning teams from each year possess.

There has been an ongoing interest in replacing mineral oil with more biodegradable and/or fire-resistant hydraulic fluids in many mobile equipment applications. Although many alternative fluids may be more biodegradable, or fire-resistant, or both than mineral oil, they often suffer from other limitations such as poorer wear, oxidative stability, and yellow metal corrosion which inhibit their performance in high-pressure hydraulic systems, particularly high pressure piston pump applications. From the fluid supplier's viewpoint, the development of a definitive test, or series of tests, that provides sufficient information to determine how a given fluid would perform with various hydraulic components would be of interest because it would minimize extensive testing. This is often too slow or prohibitively expensive. Furthermore, from OEM's (original equipment manufacturer's) point of view, it would be advantageous to develop a more effective, industry accepted fluid analysis screening.

Several very different order tracking and analysis techniques for rotating equipment have been developed recently that are available in commercial noise and vibrations software packages. Each of these order tracking methods has distinct trade-offs for many common applications and very specific advantages for special applications in sound quality or noise and vibrations troubleshooting. The Kalman, Vold-Kalman, Computed Order Tracking, and the Time Variant Discrete Fourier Transform as well as common FFT based order analysis methods will all be presented. The strengths and weaknesses of each of the methods will be presented as well as the highlights of their mathematical properties. This paper is intended to be an overview of currently available technology with all methods presented in a common format that allows easy comparison of their properties. Several analytical examples will be presented to thoroughly document each methods' behavior with different types of data.