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Exterior component integration presents competing performance challenges for balanced exterior styling, safety, ‘structural feel’ [1] and durability. Industry standard practices utilize noise and vibration mode maps and source-path-receiver [2] considerations for component mode frequency placement. This modal frequency placement has an influence on ‘structural feel’ and durability performance. Challenges have increased with additional styling content, geometric overhang from attachment points, component size and mass, and sensor modules. Base excitation at component attachment interfaces are increase due to relative positioning of the suspension and propulsion vehicle source inputs. These components might include headlamps, side mirrors, end gates, bumpers and fascia assemblies. Here, we establish basic expectations for the behavior of these systems, and ultimately consolidate existing rationales that are applied to these systems.

A task group within the SAE Automotive Corrosion and Protection (ACAP) Committee continues to pursue the goal of establishing a standard test method for in-laboratory cosmetic corrosion evaluations of finished aluminum auto body panels. The program is a cooperative effort with OEM, supplier, and consultant participation and is supported in part by USAMP (AMD 309) and the U.S. Department of Energy. Numerous laboratory corrosion test environments have been used to evaluate the performance of painted aluminum closure panels, but correlations between laboratory test results and in-service performance have not been established. The primary objective of this project is to identify an accelerated laboratory test method that correlates with in-service performance. In this paper the type, extent, and chemical nature of cosmetic corrosion observed in the on-vehicle exposures are compared with those from some of the commonly used laboratory tests

With the introduction of the ISO26262 automotive safety standard there is a burden of proof to show that the processing elements in embedded microcontroller hardware are capable of supporting a certain diagnostic coverage level, depending on the required Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL). The current mechanisms used to provide actual metrics of the Built-in Self Tests (BIST) and Lock Step comparators use Register Transfer Level (RTL) simulations of the internal processing elements which force faults into individual nodes of the design and collect diagnostic coverage results. Although this mechanism is robust, it can only be performed by semiconductor suppliers and is costly. This paper describes a new solution whereby the microcontroller is synthesized into a large Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) with a test controller on the outside.

Over the past several years a task group within the SAE Automotive Corrosion and Protection (ACAP) Committee has conducted extensive on-vehicle field testing and numerous accelerated lab tests with the goal of establishing a standard accelerated test method for cosmetic corrosion evaluations of finished aluminum auto body panels. This project has been a cooperative effort with OEM, supplier, and consultant participation and was also supported in part by DOE through USAMP (AMD 309). The focus of this project has been the identification of a standardized accelerated cosmetic corrosion test that exhibits the same appearance, severity, and type of corrosion products that are exhibited on identical painted aluminum panels exposed to service relevant environments. Multi-year service relevant exposures were conducted by mounting panels on-vehicles in multiple locations in the US and Canada.

Since 2000, an Aluminum Cosmetic Corrosion task group within the SAE Automotive Corrosion and Protection (ACAP) Committee has existed. The task group has pursued the goal of establishing a standard test method for in-laboratory cosmetic corrosion evaluations of finished aluminum auto body panels. A cooperative program uniting OEM, supplier, and consultants has been created and has been supported in part by USAMP (AMD 309) and the U.S. Department of Energy. Prior to this committee's formation, numerous laboratory corrosion test environments have been used to evaluate the performance of painted aluminum closure panels. However, correlations between these laboratory test results and in-service performance have not been established. Thus, the primary objective of this task group's project was to identify an accelerated laboratory test method that correlates well with in-service performance.

As the automotive industry quickly moves towards hybridized and electrified vehicles, the optimal integration of power electronics in these vehicles will have a significant impact not only on the cost, performance, reliability, and durability; but ultimately on customer acceptance and market success of these technologies. If properly executed with the right cost, performance, reliability and durability, then both the industry and the consumer will benefit. It is because of these interdependencies that the pace and scale of success, will hinge on effective collaboration. This collaboration will be built around the convergence of automotive and industrial technology. Where real time embedded controls mixes with high power and voltage levels. The industry has already seen several successful collaborations adapting power electronics to the automotive space in target vehicles.

Modern semiconductor devices enable highly efficient conversion of electrical power. Together with the microcontroller, they are the key elements for generation of the alternating currents from the car's DC supply that are necessary to drive high-performance units such as starter-alternators. These allow the combustion engine to crank up in several 100 ms and deliver up to 15 kW of electrical power. Smart driver ICs such as the TLE6280 enable the fast development of the interface between the microcontroller and the power switches. Currents of some 100A can be handled with the new OptiMOS FETs. Their rugged and ultra-low ohmic technology and their innovative packaging concepts, such as Power Modules and Power-Bonded MOSFETs, allow the building of compact and efficient control units.

Infineon proposes a Quasi-Autonomous Gate Driver (QAGD) to manage an electrically actuated component, whether electromechanical, electromagnetic, or electrohydraulic. This paper examines some current control strategies that can be implemented within the QAGD, such as: Synchronous Sampling (SYSA), Hysteresis, Improved Synchronous Sampling-Hysteresis (ISSH), Suboscillation, Suboscillation with Back EMF Feedforward (SBEF) and Synchronous Control in Rotation Coordinates (SCRC). Analysis and simulation of these strategies indicate their advantages and disadvantages, which are then summarized in a comparison chart, from which the best solution for a given application can be determined. The QAGD IC proposed by Infineon adopts this solution by integrating the current controller and the driver unit for the MOSFETs in a single package. The inverter function can therefore be implemented using one QAGD and several MOSFETs, which greatly simplify the system and decrease the costs.

During the development of an automotive acoustic package, valuable information can be gained by visualizing the acoustic energy flow through the Front-of-Dash (FOD) when a sound source is placed in the engine compartment. Two of the commonly used methods for generating the visual map of the acoustic field include Sound Intensity measurements and array technologies. An alternative method is to use a tracked 3-dimensional acoustic probe to scan and visualize the FOD in real-time when the sound source is injecting noise into the engine compartment. The scan is used to focus the development of the FOD acoustic package on the weakest areas by identifying acoustic leaks and locations with low Transmission Loss. This paper provides a brief discussion of the capabilities of the tracked 3-D acoustic probe, and presents examples of the implementation of the probe during the development of the FOD acoustic package for two mid-sized sedans.

The implementation of electronic shifters (e-shifter) for automatic transmissions in vehicles has created many new opportunities for the customer facing transmission interface and in-vehicle packaging. E-shifters have become popular in recent years as their smaller physical size leads to packaging advantages, they reduce the mass of the automatic transmission shift system, they are easier to install during vehicle assembly, and act as an enabler for autonomous driving. A button-style e-shifter has the ability to create a unique customer interface to the automatic transmission, as it is very different from the conventional column lever or linear console shifter. In addition to this, a button-style e-shifter can free the center console of valuable package space for other customer-facing functions, such as storage bins and Human-Machine Interface controllers.

Electric vehicles have a strong potential to reduce a continued dependence on fossil fuels and help the environment by reducing pollution. Despite the desirable advantage, the introduction of electrified vehicles into the market place continues to be a challenge due to cost, safety, and life of the batteries. General Motors continues to bring vehicles to market with varying level of hybrid functionality. Since the introduction of Li-ion batteries by Sony Corporation in 1991 for the consumer market, significant progress has been made over the past 25 years. Due to market pull for consumer electronic products, power and energy densities have significantly increased, while costs have dropped. As a result, Li-ion batteries have become the technology of choice for automotive applications considering space and mass is very critical for the vehicles.

The objective of this research is a detailed investigation of particulate sizing and number count from a spark-ignited, direct-injection (SIDI) engine at different operating conditions. The engine is a 549 [cc] single-cylinder, four-valve engine with a flat-top piston, fueled by Tier II EEE. A baseline engine operating condition, with a low number of particulates, was established and repeatability at this condition was ascertained. This baseline condition is specified as 2000 rpm, 320 kPa IMEP, 280 [°bTDC] end of injection (EOI), and 25 [°bTDC] ignition timing. The particle size distributions were recorded for particle sizes between 7 and 289 [nm]. The baseline particle size distribution was relatively flat, around 1E6 [dN/dlogDp], for particle diameters between 7 and 100 [nm], before dropping off to decreasing numbers at larger diameters. Distributions resulting from a matrix of different engine conditions were recorded.

Styrene-Butadiene Rubber (SBR), a copolymer of butadiene and styrene, is widely used in the automotive industry due to its high durability and resistance to abrasion, oils and oxidation. Some of the common applications include tires, vibration isolators, and gaskets, among others. This paper characterizes the dynamic behavior of SBR and discusses the suitability of a visco-elastic model of elastomers, known as the Kelvin model, from a mathematical and physical point of view. An optimization algorithm is used to estimate the parameters of the Kelvin model. The resulting model was shown to produce reasonable approximations of measured dynamic stiffness. The model was also used to calculate the self heating of the elastomer due to energy dissipation by the viscous damping components in the model. Developing such a predictive capability is essential in understanding the dynamic behavior of elastomers considering that their dynamic stiffness can in general depend on temperature.

A primary goal of large eddy simulation, LES, is to capture in-cylinder cycle-to-cycle variability, CCV. This is a first step to assess the efficacy of 35 consecutive computed motored cycles to capture the kinetic energy in the TCC-III engine. This includes both the intra-cycle production and dissipation as well as the kinetic energy CCV. The approach is to sample and compare the simulated three-dimensional velocity equivalently to the available two-component two-dimensional PIV velocity measurements. The volume-averaged scale-resolved kinetic energy from the LES is sampled in three slabs, which are volumes equal to the two axial and one azimuthal PIV fields-of-view and laser sheet thickness. Prior to the comparison, the effects of sampling a cutting plane versus a slab and slabs of different thicknesses are assessed. The effects of sampling only two components and three discrete planar regions is assessed.

Fuel chemistry plays a crucial role in the continued reduction of particulate emissions (PE) and cleaner air quality from vehicles and equipment powered by internal combustion engines (ICE). Over the past ten years, there have been great improvements in predictive particulate emissions indices (correlative mathematical models) based on the fuel’s composition. Examples of these particulate indices (PI) are the Honda Particulate Matter Index (PMI) and the General Motors Particulate Evaluation Index (PEI). However, the analytical chemistry lab methods used to generate data for these two PI indices are very time-consuming. Because gasoline can be mixtures of hundreds of hydrocarbon compounds, these lab methods typically include the use of the high resolution chromatographic separation techniques such as detailed hydrocarbon analysis (DHA), with 100m chromatography columns and long (3 - 4 hours) analysis times per sample.

As passenger vehicle design evolves and accelerates, the use of multi-body dynamics solvers has proven to be invaluable in the engineering workflow. MBD solvers allow engineers to build virtual vehicle models that can accurately simulate vehicle responses and calculate internal forces, which previously could only be assessed using physical prototype builds with hundreds of measurement transducers. Evaluation and selection of solvers within an engineering environment is inherently a multi-dimensional activity that can include ease of use, retention of previously developed expertise, accuracy, speed, and integration with existing analysis processes. We discuss here some of the challenges present in developing capability and accumulating data to support each of these criteria. Developing a pilot model that is capable of being applied to a comprehensive set of use cases, and then verifying those use cases, required significant project management activity.

Today's requirements for engine management controllers are increasing in various aspects. Stronger emission standards and diagnosis requirements demand more complex control algorithms, faster system response times, better usage of sensor information throughout the system and higher accuracy of actuator stimuli. Despite that, new solutions are needed to answer the requirement for higher cost effectiveness, flexibility and reusability. The trade-off between cost and functionality is constantly being reviewed when choosing the right microcontroller to operate with an ECU. Integration of more complex and flexible functionality into the microcontroller helps to reduce the need for custom ASICs and thus reduce the overall system cost. In order to reduce the demands on CPU throughput within the microcontroller, manufacturers have introduced smart peripherals that off-load some of the work of the CPU into the peripherals.

Recent trends in field bus applications, especially in the automotive section, show a very high demand for data exchange between decentralised, intelligent functional units and modules. These functional units can be grouped together to power train applications or body/convenience applications. In many cases, the coupling of local modules is done with one or more independent bus systems. The actual design and the partitioning of the modules strongly depend on application-specific requirements, such as the total amount of data to be transferred or the maximum of the tolerated latency in data delivery. A very powerful and fast field bus is the CAN bus (Controller Area Network), which supports transfers with data rates up to 1 Mbits/s. Due to the higher transmission speed and the standardized functionality, CAN is a very interesting alternative to and improvement on bus systems based on other protocols.

The demands of the automotive market are decreasing the time-to-market required from the initial concept of new control systems to their implementation. The goal of automotive companies is to constantly reduce the development time to reap the full economic and strategic benefits of being quicker to market. The target is to reach a development time of less than 12 months for some applications. At the same time, the complexity of these new systems is growing almost exponentially. While new techniques like model-based control design with executable specifications, rapid control prototyping and hardware-in-the-loop simulation have helped significantly streamline the development process, the new strategies are still being transferred to the production target by hand. During an early project phase, automotive customers also need to explore different silicon architectures provided by semiconductor manufacturers to select the vendors who can offer the best solution at the lowest price.

The increasing legal requirements for safety, emission reduction, fuel economy and onboard diagnostic systems are forcing the market to increase complexity. This complexity must not be a reason for slowing down the introduction of new systems. For efficiency, car manufacturers and system suppliers want to focus on their core competencies and leave the micro-controller complexity to silicon vendors. Competition forces system suppliers to jump to the most “function/cost” effective solution. For this reason it is very dangerous to move in the direction of specific solutions which require a large amount of effort to modify. Therefore the market goes in the direction of standards with clear interfaces. The approach presented overcomes these obstacles by introducing a Configurable I/O System (CIOS) layer. The CIOS encompasses basic software driver objects for engine management systems encapsulating the standard sensors and actuators.