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When truck tires have a deformation such as radial runout, flat spot, and abnormal wear as a result of panic braking, they affect vehicle vibration in the form of displacement input whose spectrum involves higher order terms of tire revolution. While a truck has vibration modes of frame bending as well as pitching and unsprung-mass viberation in the input frequency range, the tire displacement input induces vehicle vibration as a combination of these modes. Results of calculations and experiments of a 4x2 medium-duty truck are analyzed and an example of means for improving ride comfort is described in this paper.

Optimization of the clutch torsional characteristics is one of the effective methods to reduce the idling rattle noise. Many researches on th.s problem have been reported, but only few of them give sufficient consideration to the drag torque applied to the clutch disc during engine idling. This paper pays attention to the drag torque and discusses the mechanism of idling rattle noise by using vehicle testing, bench test with rotating torsional exciter and computer simulation. Reauction of Idling

During next decade, automotive engineers will take up unprecedented challenges to meet a variety of technical demands on passenger cars. While performance, refinement and reliability will continue to be major technical goals of passenger cars, reducing their impact on the environment not only in urban areas but also on the global basis will become an increasingly urgent issue. In addition, the need for energy and resources saving will necessitate development of more fuel efficient cars, exploitation of alternative energy and recycled materials. In this paper, the authors will review various alternative engines as candidates to satisfy the above demands. The authors will also discuss various alternative transportation energy sources such as alcoholic fuels, natural gas, hydrogen and electricity. Finally the trends of future passenger car engine design will be discussed.

Beta Ti alloy valve spring retainers are newly developed for use in mass produced automobiles for the first time. Ti alloy valve spring retainers vith a weight saving of 42%, compared to steel retainers, have reduced the inertial weight of the valve train components by 6%. And this weight reduction has the benefit of increasing the upper limit of the engine speed, which improves the engine performance. Ti alloy valve spring retainers are cold forged by the conventional fabrication facilities for steel retainers, using Ti-22V-4Al (the beta Ti alloy) which possesses excellent cold workability in a solution treated condition. Oxygen surface hardening is applied to protect Ti alloy valve spring retainers from wear damage. In addition, aging treatment and shot blasting are performed to improve strength and stiffness of valve retainers.

Austempered ductile iron (ADI) is a material having excellent mechanical properties and damping capacity. However practical mass production of ADI gears has not been possible due to ADI's poor machinability and distortion during the austempering heat treatment. With a new process method of carrying out hobbing before austempering when the material is in its soft condition, then austempering it and lastly, conducting the shave finishing process, we have diminished the above defects and developed practical ADI gears. These new gears generate less noise than ordinary nitrocarburized steel gears and are superior in pitting resistance.

With the intention of improving engine performance and emissions, the authors examined the influence of the method of initial fuel injection quantity reduction and of the injector configuration of a common rail fuel injection system on engine performance and exhaust emissions. Results showed that decreasing the nozzle hole diameter was an effective way to reduce the initial injection quantity without increasing black smoke. Compared to a three-way type injector, it was found that a two-way type injector can greatly reduce the amount of fuel leakage from the electromagnetic injector control valve and fuel consumption could be further improved by reduction of the driving loss. Furthermore, the increase of driving losses with higher injection pressure was small, and as a result, higher pressure injection was possible.

Several different steel sheets were tested for energy absorption, using hat square columns and dynamic crash testing. Results indicate that steel sheets containing large volume fraction of retained austenite have relatively high energy absorption. The relationship between retained austenite and energy absorption was analyzed. These special steel sheets have already been successfully used for production body parts, such a front-side-member, without difficulties arising in volume production.

Three zone mixture preparation model, assuming that fuel and air are distributed in three separate zones, fuel air and mixture zone, was proposed. Air Utilization Efficiency derived from the model was used to evaluate the mixing nonuniformity. Effect of the large scale nonisotropic turbulence downstream of the dimple or edge in the intake port of MPI engine on the convective mass transfer from fuel film was clarified by the proposed nondimensional index, Local Sherwood Number. It was found that when the fuel is injected toward the wall where large scale turbulence exists, almost all of the fuel is seeded in the air passing the region at the beginning of the intake process, resulting in the time-resolved nonuniformity of the mixture strength at the intake valve. Using the Air Utilization Efficiency, it was elucidated that time-resolved mixing nonuniformity at intake valves induces spatially nonuniform fuel/air distribution in the cylinder.

This paper describes a control strategy for autonomous vehicles in an intelligent vehicle/highway system. The control concept aims at the compatibility of passenger riding comfort and vehicle controllability. The main subject of this paper is lateral control of vehicles. In order to analyze riding comfort, we have experimented on the lateral riding comfort during a lane change. It was found that the riding comfort is mainly related to the jerk more than the acceleration, and that the trajectory pattern is important. According to the experimental results, a motion control system was designed. We found through the computer simulation and the experiment with an autonomous test vehicle that comfortable ride is realized along with system stability. Lastly, in order to apply this strategy to the longitudinal direction, we have experimented on the longitudinal acceleration with the test vehicle. The results shows that the same strategy is applicable to the longitudinal direction.

This paper describes a calculating method to predict the quasi-static collapsing behaviors of spot-welded closed-hat section curved beams under axial compression. The overall deformat ions and the local buckling modes of beams were calculated using a geometrical model. Force-displacement relations were predicted by a elastic-plastic structural analysis method using the ‘plastic hinge’ concept. Collapsing tests were made on beams which are differenting section size, rotation angle, and metal sheet thickness. Comparisons between the calculated and experimental results of deformed shapes of beams, the local buckling modes and the force displacement relations are discussed.

The authors developed, for use in diesel engines, ceramic tappets cast in aluminum alloy that drastically improved wear resistance and valve train dynamics. The ceramic tappets consist of two parts: a ceramic head, which contacts the cam and push rod, and a tappet body made of aluminum alloy. Concerning the ceramic, silicon nitride was the best material of the three ceramics evaluated in the tests and the sliding surface, in contact with the cam and push rod, was left unground. As for the aluminum alloy, hyper-eutectic aluminum-silicon alloy with a controlled pro-eutectic silicon size was selected. A reliability analysis using the finite-element method (FEM) was also made on the structure of the ceramic tappet for enhanced durability and reliability. The combination of this tappet and a cam made of hardened ductile cast iron, hardened steel, or chilled cast iron, respectively exhibits excellent wear resistance.

Following the previous reports, ventilation characteristics in automobile was investigated by using a half-scale car model which was created by the Society of Automotive Engineers of Japan (JSAE). In the present study, the ventilation mode of the cabin was foot mode which was the ventilation method for using in winter season. Supplied air was blown from the supply openings under the dashboard to the rear of the model via the driver's foot region in this mode. The experiment was performed in order to obtain accurate data about the airflow properties equipped with particle image velocimetry (PIV). Our experimental data is to be shared as a standard model to assess the environment within automobiles. The data is also for use in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) benchmark tests in the development of automobile air conditioning, which enables high accuracy prediction of the interior environment of automobiles.

New systems or functionalities have been rapidly introduced for fuel economy improvement. Active vibration suppression has also been introduced. Control algorithm is required to be verified in real time environment to develop controller functionality in a short term. Required frequency domain property concept is proposed for representation of target phenomena with reduced models. It is shown how to select or reduce engine, transmission and vehicle model based on the concept. Engine torque profile which has harmonics of engine rotation is required for engine start, take-off from stand still, noise & vibration suppression and misfire detection for OBD simulation. An engine model which generates torque profile synchronous to crank angle was introduced and modified for real time simulation environment where load changes dynamically. Selected models and control algorithms were modified for real time environment and implemented into two linked universal controllers.

New numerical simulation system and experimental evaluation system has been developed to predict and evaluate occupant's thermal sensation in a passenger compartment in which environment is not steady and not uniform. Transitional effective temperature, which is new index of thermal sensation, is proposed and verified to correspond with subjects' thermal sensation votes. The simulation system has two advantage beside the prediction of thermal sensation; automatic generation of a computational model and coupling analysis of temperature including an analysis of temperature distribution inside a cabin, refrigerating cycle, solar radiation, and so on. It was verified that this system well predicts occupant's thermal sensation in a short time.

The need of lightweight vehicle design is motivated by the recent global trend of less fuel consumption and lower emission in vehicle. However in NVH development of vehicle, it becomes more difficult for the lightweight vehicle to reach low vibro-acoustic sensitivity than, for the heavy weight one to do so. Inthis environment, this paper describes about the practical finite element (FE) modeling of vehicle structure and acoustics, in order to predict "boom" response to powertrain excitation. The FE modeling process through validation and updating with experimental mode makes, the accumulation of considerable expertise for improving prediction accuracy, possible. FE analysis based on this modeling process is so useful for predicting "boom" levels up to 200 Hz. Using the result of FE analysis, structural optimization is executed in order to improve "boom" level of 80 Hz.

As the global environmental protection becomes the world consensus recently, the regulations of the fuel consumption and the exhaust gas have large effects on the performance and the fundamental structure of commercial vehicles. Especially the technology concerning "fluid" and "heat" has a close relationship with those issues. Owing to above circumstances, commercial vehicles such as large trucks and buses are forced to be designed near the limit of allowance. Furthermore, a rapid design is another requirement. However, though significant number of variations, i.e., cab configuration, wheel base, rear body configuration, engine specification, etc., are prepared, it is impossible to improve the performance of all those combinations by experiments which cost a lot. Accordingly, the quantitative prediction using computer will become indispensable at the beginning term of new car development.

This paper presents the results of acoustic analyses of light duty truck cabs by actual vehicle testing and by numerical analysis utilizing the boundary element method (BEM). In the resonance mode analysis using BEM, by taking into account the vibration characteristics of cab panels, the presence of the modes other than the purely acoustic cavity resonance modes were confirmed. The contribution of the panel vibrations to booming noise that occurs in actual light duty trucks was analyzed. BEM analysis showed that some of the panel vibration had a negative contribution to booming noise. In other words, decreasing vibration in such a section was shown to increase sound pressure. The results of the BEM analysis match well with actual test results. It has thus been demonstrated that BEM is an effective method for analyzing truck interior noise reduction.

In order to design a well-balanced truck frame, optimization of not only the stiffness of the entire body and stress of each member, but also the internal force of each member is necessary, including the effect of a rear body mounted on the frame. This paper proposes a new parameter, “torsional stiffness share rate,” that directly correlates the contribution of member torsional stiffness to frame torsional stiffness with the internal force of the members as to torsion of the truck frame. The merits of the torsional stiffness share rate are shown in comparison with the strain energy share rate and the stiffness contribution rate. The results of experimental and FEM analyses of the torsional stiffness share rate are also presented.

In the heavy-duty commercial vehicle market in Japan, particularly in the segment of dump trucks and tractors, naturally aspirated engines maintain a dominant market share because of their superior torque characteristics in the low speed range. In order to meet the ever increasing needs for higher speeds of transportation, better fuel economy and higher reliability, and the needs for increasingly strict exhaust emission regulations, Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC) has developed the 8M20, a 20 liter V8 diesel engine. The '92 model series of “THE GREAT”, MMC's main heavy-duty trucks, has featured this new and powerful engine and has been in the market place since October, 1991. The 8M20 is a naturally aspirated engine that provides an output of 294kW/2200rpm, complying with the current Japanese exhaust emission regulations.