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The public transport in India is gradually shifting towards electric mobility. Long range in electric mobility can be served with High Voltage Battery (HVB), but HVB can sustain for its designed life if it’s maintained within a specific operating temperature range. Appropriate battery thermal management through Battery Cooling System (BCS) is critical for vehicle range and battery durability This work focus on two aspects, BCS sizing and its coolant flow optimization in Electric bus. BCS modelling was done in 1D CAE software. The objective is to develop a model of BCS in virtual environment to replicate the physical testing. Electric bus contain numerous battery packs and a complex piping in its cooling system. BCS sizing simulation was performed to keep the battery packs in operating temperature range.

In present day passenger cars, Mobile Air Conditioning (MAC) system is one of the essential features due to rise in overall ambient temperatures and comfort expectation of customers. During the development of MAC system, the focus is on cooling capacity of system for maintaining in-cabin temperatures. However, parameters like solar radiation, air velocities at occupant, relative humidity, metabolic rate and clothing of occupants also influence occupant’s thermal comfort and normally not considered in design of the MAC system. Subjective method is used to evaluate thermal comfort inside vehicle cabin which depends mainly on human psychology. To better understand the effect and minimize the human psychological factors a large sample of people are required. That process of evaluating the comfort inside the vehicle cabin is not only time consuming but also impractical.

In today’s automobile market, most OEMs use manual transmission for cars. Gear Shifting is a crucial customer touch point. Any issue or inconvenience caused while shifting gears can result into customer dissatisfaction and will affect the brand image. Synchronizer is a vital subsystem for precise gear shifting mechanism. Based on vehicle application selection of synchronizer for given inertia and speed difference is a key factor which decides overall shift quality of gearbox. For more demanding driver abuse conditions like skip shifting, conventional brass synchronizers have proved inadequate for required speed difference and gear inertia, which eventually results into synchronizer crashing and affects driving performance. To increase synchronizer performance of multi-cone compact brass synchronizer, a ‘Grit blasting process’ has been added. These components tested with an accelerated test plan successfully.

A hydraulic-assisted power steering system on a vehicle has a steering pump which is directly driven from the engine continuously. In real world, the assistance from the steering pump is useful only while maneuvering. During a typical highway drive, assistance from this power steering pump remains unused for majority (76%) of the time; although the continuously rotating power steering pump keeps consuming energy from the engine. An electronic controller has been provided for the electro-magnetic pairing device of the power steering pump in order to provide assistance for steering based on driver demand only. The electromagnetic pairing device integrated on the steering pump can be made to engage/disengage based on the driver demand through the electronic controller.

Automotive Audio Signaling system is very vital and is controlled by local regulatory requirements. In India, usage of horn is very frequent due to highly congested traffic conditions, and is in the order of 10 to 12 times per kilometer. This results in the deterioration of the “contact”, which enables the functioning of the device. Hence the device requires premature replacement or frequent tuning, which are time consuming and results an increase in warranty costs and cost of service as well. Thus, to overcome this problem a unique and novel approach is proposed in this paper which enhances the life of the automobile horn, by implementing an additional pair of Contacts on circuit breakers, providing a parallel path for the power supply. This effort ensures that the life of the horn is increased by 5 times than the existing design.

The changing mobility landscape of India reveals that the erstwhile transport modes of the 20th century i.e., railways and road buses are making way for airlines, personal vehicles, shared mobility, metro rails. Rapid technological changes, stricter regulations, new transport cultures autonomous, connected, electric and shared (ACES), state-of-the-art and environmental concerns are shaping up the eco-system for automobiles. Despite these challenges roadways and automobiles will continue to be most prominent solution in India for future. But for that, the automobile sector should be agile, innovative, and adaptable to changing eco-system, vigilant to thwart threat of alternate mobility solutions and must provide sustainable solutions for the future. The purpose of this paper to evaluate various mobility solutions, ascertain prominence of upcoming automobile solutions and their sustainability for future in India.

Vehicle floor vibration is the resultant of different road inputs damped through various transfer paths. Seat comfort, which depends on these floor vibrations, can be evaluated with a single input signal “Pink noise”; which constitutes various road inputs. Transmissibility of seat structure on a vibration shaker with pink noise input includes all possible responses of road inputs. Still, transmissibility profile at vehicle end and component level varies. This is due to the utilization of “dummy” on component level testing on vibration shaker, which acts as a dead weight with dissimilar damping characteristics of human. A transmissibility correlation between human and dummy is attained by replacing the dummy in place of human and actuating it to find the difference in contribution between them for different class of vehicles. This contribution extrapolation from the damping effects of human and dummy is applied on dummy transmissibility.

Today, noise perceived by the occupants is becoming an important factor driving the design standards for the design of most of the interior assemblies in an automotive vehicle. Buzz, Squeak and Rattle (BSR) is a major contributor towards the perceived noise of annoyance to the vehicle occupants. An automotive vehicle consists of many chassis assemblies which are the potential sources of BSR noise. The potential locations of critical BSR noise could be contained within such assemblies as well as across their boundaries. Engine mount design is major area where BSR noises can be heard inside cabin on various road conditions. Natural rubber is regular rubber used in engine mount applications but in this paper BSR problems are solved by changing the rubber compound i.e., NR+BR (slippery compound). Detailed case study is presented where slippery rubber compound is used which is solving BSR issue and also meeting durability targets.

Steering column and steering wheel are critical safety components in vehicle interior environment. Steering system needs to be designed to absorb occupant impact energy in the event of crash thereby reducing the risk of injury to the occupant. This is more critical for non-airbag vehicle versions. To evaluate the steering system performance, Body block impact test is defined in IS11939 standard [1]. Nowadays for product development, CAE is being extensively used to reduce development cycle time and minimize number of prototypes required for physical validation. In order to design the steering system to meet the Body Block performance requirements, a detailed FE model of Body Block impactor is required. The static stiffness and moment of inertia of body block are defined in SAE J244a [2]. The reference data available in SAE J244a is not sufficient to develop a Body Block model that would represent the physical impactor.

The vehicle crash signature (here on referred as crash pulse) significantly affects occupant restraints system performance in frontal crash events. Restraints system optimization is usually undertaken in later phase of product development. This leads to sub-optimal configurations and performance, as no opportunity exists to tune vehicle structure and occupant package layouts. In concept phase of development, crash pulse characterization helps to map occupant package environment with available structure crush space and stiffness. The crash pulse slope, peaks, average values at discrete time intervals, can be tuned considering library of restraints parameters. This would help to derive an optimal occupant kinematics and occupant-restraints interaction in crash event. A case study has been explained in this paper to highlight the methodology.

Vehicle refinement from point of view reduction in its Noise, Vibrations and Harshness (NVH) affects customer’s buying decision and it also directly influences his/her driving experience on road at different speeds. Customer voice, however, indicates that a traditional process of developing design solutions is not aligned with the customers’ expectations. Traditionally the load cases for NVH development are focused only on quietness of passengers’ cabin at idling and in 3rd gear wide open throttle cruising on smooth roads. In reality, the Driver of a premium sedan car or a Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) or a Compact Utility Vehicle (CUV) expects something different than merely the low sound pressure level inside the cabin. His/her driving pattern over a day plays a crucial role. A vehicle-owner wishes to balance various attributes of the in-cab sound and tactile vibrations at a time.

Single plate dry clutch is one of the most abuse components in the vehicle. With the growing population of traffic in cities, useful life of clutch is affected drastically which is evident from the rise in complaints on clutch from metropolitan cities. The governing design parameter, which affects the life of clutch, is the energy dissipated in clutch per unit area of friction lining of clutch disc. The life of clutch is affected by many factors like vehicle weight, engine torque, driveline ratios, friction lining, size of clutch, which are taken into consideration during design stage of the clutch. Apart from these factors, one more factor, engine calibration, affects the clutch life drastically. However, it is not taken into consideration during design stage owing to its inherent nature as it gets matured over the vehicle development program.

Driving dynamics performance is one of the key customer attributes to be developed during product development. In the vehicle development process, freezing the hardware of the chassis aggregates is one of the major priorities to kick off the other vehicle development activities. The current work involves the development of a multilink suspension for an SUV class vehicle. Typically, each OEM performs several product development loops for maturing the vehicle design. The driving dynamics performance evaluation and tuning happens on a physical vehicle with the driver in Loop. Tuning of suspension parameter on the physical vehicle entails actual replacement of parts/components. This encompasses multiple tuning cycles in product development associated with increased cost and test time. To reduce the product development time and cost while delivering first time right chassis configuration, we took an approach of getting driver-in-loop through driving simulator in the concept phase.

In response to the growing need for increased mobility and road safety, India, like other developing nations, is placing a high focus on modernizing its transport infrastructure. This report performs a thorough technical analysis of the challenges and implementation issues that were encountered when deploying Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) in India. This paper provides valuable information about successful ITS deployment and the unique challenges faced in the Indian context, drawing on global research and case studies. A detailed understanding of cutting-edge technologies and how they integrate with current infrastructure is essential for India's adoption of ITS to be successful. Collaboration with a range of stakeholders, including governmental organizations, transportation authorities, and technology businesses, is essential for effective deployment. Using examples from around the world, this study intends to find the best stakeholder management practices.

The primary function of an engine mounting bracket is to support the powertrain system in all road conditions without any failure. The mount has to withstand different road conditions and driving maneuvers which exert loads on it. Also, it is challenging to change the mounting locations and types after the engine is built; hence it is paramount to verify the mounting brackets against all abuse loads in the design stage. The Car manufacturers ensure engine mount bracket design meets CAE's (Computer-aided engineering) static and fatigue load cases. The CAE is performed using digital RLD (Road load data) loads. The design checks cumulative strain or stress against specified service life requirements during break and fatigue FOS (Factor of safety) calculations. However, it is difficult to simulate the material's fracture toughness to estimate the effect of the impact load on the mounting bracket.

The commercial vehicle sector (especially trucks) has major role in economic growth of a nation. With improving infrastructure, increasing number of commercial vehicles and growing amount of Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) on roads, accidents are also increasing. As per RASSI (Road Accident Sampling System India) FY2016-21 database, commercial vehicles are involved in 43% of total accidents on Indian roads. One of the major causes of these accidents is Driver Drowsiness and Inattention (DDI) (approx. 10% contribution in total accidents). This paper describes novel driver-in-loop performance assessment methodology for comprehensive verification of Driver Monitoring System (DMS) for commercial vehicle application. Novelty lies in specification of test subjects, driving styles and variety of road traffic scenarios for verification of DMS system. Test setup is made modular to cater to different platform environments (Heavy, Intermediate, Light) with minor modifications.

The need for effective control systems is exacerbated by tighter pollution regulations and consumer demands for highly efficiently vehicles especially in the passenger segment. The air flow estimation of engine and accordingly controlling the fuel removes the lacuna of modern gasoline engines. The hot wire type mass air flow sensor is commonly used for air flow measurement, and it generally mounted in clean side piping to prevent damage to air mass flow sensor. The right estimation of air flow is possible by getting uniform flow over the different engine operating speed and load conditions. The placement of air flow sensor becomes critical considering the engine layout and packaging constraints and meeting the sensor mounting requirements. The deviation in mounting of air flow sensor will lead to consequently impact of engine performance and emissions.