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Combustion engines are typically only 20-30% efficient at part-load operating conditions, resulting in poor fuel economy on average. To address this, LiquidPiston has developed an improved thermodynamics cycle, called the High-Efficiency Hybrid Cycle (HEHC), which optimizes each process (stroke) of the engine operation, with the aim of maximizing fuel efficiency. The cycle consists of: 1) a high compression ratio; 2) constant-volume combustion, and 3) over-expansion. At a modest compression ratio of 18:1, this cycle offers an ideal thermodynamic efficiency of 74%. To embody the HEHC cycle, LiquidPiston has developed two very different rotary engine architectures ? called the ?M? and ?X? engines. These rotary engine architectures offer flexibility in executing the thermodynamics cycle, and also result in a very compact package. In this talk, I will present recent results in the development of the LiquidPiston engines. The company is currently testing 20 and 40 HP versions of the ?M?

Gasoline turbocharged direct injection (GTDI) engines, such as EcoBoost™ from Ford, are becoming established as a high value technology solution to improve passenger car and light truck fuel economy. Due to their high specific performance and excellent low-speed torque, improved fuel economy can be realized due to downsizing and downspeeding without sacrificing performance and driveability while meeting the most stringent future emissions standards with an inexpensive three-way catalyst. A logical and synergistic extension of the EcoBoost™ strategy is the use of E85 (approximately 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline) for knock mitigation. Direct injection of E85 is very effective in suppressing knock due to ethanol's high heat of vaporization - which increases the charge cooling benefit of direct injection - and inherently high octane rating. As a result, higher boost levels can be achieved while maintaining optimal combustion phasing giving high thermal efficiency.

A new turbocharged 60° 2.7L 4V-V6 gasoline engine has been developed by Ford Motor Company for both pickup trucks and car applications. This engine was code named “Nano” due to its compact size; it features a 4-valves DOHC valvetrain, a CGI cylinder block, an Aluminum ladder, an integrated exhaust manifold and twin turbochargers. The goal of this engine is to deliver 120HP/L, ULEV70 emission, fuel efficiency improvements and leadership level NVH. This paper describes the upfront design and optimization process used for the NVH development of this engine. It showcases the use of analytical tools used to define the critical design features and discusses the NVH performance relative to competitive benchmarks.

This report is a comprehensive investigation into the use of resin transfer molded glass fiber reinforced plastics in a structural application. A pickup truck cab structure is an ideal application for plastic composites. The cab is designed to fit a production Ranger pickup truck and uses carryover frame and front end structure. The cab concept consists primarily of two molded pieces. This design demonstrates extensive parts integration and allows for low-cost tooling, along with automated assembly.

A new diesel engine, called the 6.7L Power Stroke® V-8 Turbocharged Diesel, and code named "Scorpion" has been designed and developed by Ford Motor Company for the full-size pickup truck and light commercial vehicle markets. It incorporates the latest design technology to meet 2010 model year emission regulations for both chassis and dynamometer-based certifications, and is compatible with up to B20 biodiesel fuel. The engine is an entirely new 90 degree V-8 design featuring inboard exhaust, piezo common rail fuel injection, a new dual compressor wheel turbocharger, and dual loop cooling systems. The 6.7L is Ford's first diesel engine designed for the North American pickup and light commercial truck market.

Ford developed the 6R140 TorqShift six-speed transmission for the Ford F-series SuperDuty trucks. The 6R140 transmission is specifically designed to manage the increased torque produced by the 6.7-liter Power Stroke V-8 turbocharged diesel engine. It is also matched with the 6.2-liter V-8 gasoline engine. By design, the new 6R140 transmission seamlessly delivers the enormous low-rpm torque produced by the new diesel engine and efficiently manages the higher rpm of the new gasoline engine.

A compact in-situ tensile stress fixture was designed for the study of the combined effects of stress and automotive environments on structural glass fiber-reinforced composite materials. With this fixture, a standardized 300 hour laboratory screening test was developed to compare the residual property loss of composite materials due to concurrent exposure to stress and environment. It is of great importance that the data gathered in the laboratory have correlation to on-vehicle (in-service) performance, and that both lab and real world data be taken with a test system (in-situ test fixtures) capable of providing accurate and consistent results under either test condition.

Gear whine in 1st gear for an automatic transmission that has been in production for nearly thirty years was identified as an NVH issue. Due to advances in vehicle level refinement, and reduction of other masking noises, the automatic transmission gear whine became an issue with the customer. Since the transmission was already in production, the improvements had to be within the boundaries of manufacturing feasibility with existing equipment to avoid costly and time consuming investment in new machines. The approach used was one of identifying optimum values of existing gear parameters to provide a reduction in passenger compartment noise. The problem was in a light truck application. Objective noise measurements were recorded for 10 transmissions from more than 50 driven in vehicles. The transmissions were disassembled and the gears inspected.

The pneumatic air brake system for heavy commercial trucks is composed by a large number of components, aiming its proper work and compliance with rigorous criteria of vehicular safety. One of those components, present along the whole vehicle, is the air brake tube, ducts which feed valves and reservoirs with compressed air, carrying signals for acting or releasing the brake system. In 2011, due to a lack of butadiene in a global scale, the manufacturing of these tubes was compromised; as this is an important raw material present on the polymer used so far, PA12. This article introduces the methodology of selecting, developing and validating in vehicle an alternative polymer for this application. For this purpose, acceptance criteria have been established through global material specifications, as well as bench tests and vehicular validation requirements.

This article is a new methodology to create a strong and reliable procedure to measure oil level at dealers. Most of time, commercial trucks run full loaded. Engine oil level indication systems are designed to measure oil level at that condition. However commercial trucks are assembled and sold empty and without bodies for trucks. In result of this condition, vehicles with a false indication of low engine oil level are detected at dealers' pre-delivery inspection, resulting in oil addition. This oil addition causes unnecessary costs, since vehicles are produced with maximum oil level. The methodology presented in this study analyzes and treats all variables involved in engine oil level measurements from engine production line until dealers' pre-delivery inspection

This paper presents the benefits of following a disciplined thermal management process during the design and development of Ford Light Truck engine cooling systems. The thermal management process described has evolved through the increased use of Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) tools. The primary CAE tool used is a numerical simulation technique within the field of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The paper discusses the need to establish a heat management team, develop a heat management model, construct a three dimensional CFD model to simulate the thermal environment of the engine cooling system, and presents CFD modeling examples of Ford Light Trucks with engine driven cooling fans.

This paper presents the benefits of following a disciplined thermal management process during the design and development of Ford Light Truck engine cooling systems. The thermal management process described has evolved through the increased use of Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) tools. The primary CAE tool used is a numerical simulation technique within the field of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The paper discusses the need to establish a heat management team, develop a heat management model, construct a three dimensional CFD model to simulate the thermal environment of the engine cooling system, and presents CFD modeling examples of Ford Light Trucks with engine driven cooling fans.

The regulated and non-regulated emissions of a current diesel passenger car and two light-duty diesel trucks with catalysts and particulate traps were measured to better understand the effects of aftertreatment devises on the environment. The passenger car, a 1.8 L IDI TC Sierra, was tested both with and without three different diesel oxidation catalysts (DOC) and with two fuel sulfur levels, 0 and 0.05 wt%. One light-duty truck, a 2.5 L DI NA Transit, was tested on one fuel, 0.05 wt% sulfur, with and without three different particulate trap/regeneration systems and with and without a urea lean NOx catalyst (LNC) system. A second similar Transit was tested on the 0.05 wt% sulfur fuel with an electrically regenerated trap system. The results are compared to each other, regulated emission standards, and to emissions from gasoline vehicles.

In vehicle crash tests, an unbelted occupant's kinetic energy is absorbed by the restraints such as an air bag and/or knee bolster and by the vehicle structure during occupant ride-down with the deforming structure. Both the restraint energy absorbed by the restraints and the ride-down energy absorbed by the structure through restraint coupling were studied in time and displacement domains using crash test data and a simple vehicle-occupant model. Using the vehicle and occupant accelerometers and/or load cell data from the 31 mph barrier crash tests, the restraint and ride-down energy components were computed for the lower extremity, such as the femur, for the light truck and passenger car respectively.

The design and composition of heat shields is becoming a major factor in the design of future automobiles. The optimization of heat insulation materials is crucial in keeping size, mass, and cost to a minimum. The purpose of this paper is to describe the testing of four different fibrous insulating materials simulating 150,000 miles of the Underbody heat shielding that a light duty truck may experience. The materials were tested before and after the thermal durability experiment to show the degraded conduction performance of each sample.

A series of tests were conducted to determine the potential for reducing vehicle underhood temperatures by either 1) diverting the radiator fan air flow from the engine compartment or 2) by forced air cooling of the exhaust manifold in conjunction with shielding it or 3) by a combination of the two methods. The test vehicle was a Ford F-250 Light Truck with a 7.5L V-8 engine. The vehicle was tested in a dynamometer cell equipped with cell blowers to simulate road speed conditions. It was found that diverting the outlet air from the radiator will reduce underhood component temperatures when the vehicle is in motion and also at normal idle. However, if the vehicle is to be used for power takeoff applications requiring a “kicked” idle, then forced cooling of the exhaust manifolds is also required to maintain reduced underhood temperatures. A combination of these two techniques maximized the reduction of underhood temperatures for all operating conditions tested.

The evolution of computer technology has made CAE ( Computer Aided Engineering ) an integral part of the total vehicle development process. Particularly for crash development, up-front input is crucial in determining vehicle architecture, performing trade off studies and setting design targets. Detailed FEA ( Finite Element Analysis ), although more accurate, is not always suitable at this stage due to (1) the lack of Detailed design information and (2) the large amount of modelling and analysis efforts. Concept/Hybrid models, however, can provide important input to make early design decisions without a detailed design. This paper uses a concept model to illustrate the above mentioned point. The model contains, the interior structure of a pick-up truck, driver occupant, restraints, and a detailed steering column assembly. Correlation with a physical test demonstrates the reliability of the model. Several restraint parameters which influence occupant performance are identified.

This paper describes an investigation into the sound quality of passenger car and light truck closure sounds. The closure sound events that were studied included side doors, hoods, trunklids, sliding doors, tailgates, liftgates, and fuel filler doors. Binaural recordings were made of the closure sounds and presented to evaluators. Both paired comparison of preference and semantic differential techniques were used to subjectively quantify the sound quality of the acoustic events. Major psychoacoustic characteristics were identified, and objective measures were then derived that were correlated to the subjective evaluation results. Regression analysis was used to formulate models which can quantify customers perceptions of the sounds based on the objectively derived parameters. Many times it was found that the peak loudness level was a primary factor affecting the subjective impression of component quality.

A bi-fuel (Compressed Natural Gas [CNG] and gasoline) pickup truck has been developed using the Ford Alternative Fuel Qualified Vehicle Modifier (QVM) process. The base vehicle's 4.9L engine has been specially modified for improved durability on gaseous fuels. The base vehicle's configuration has been designed for conversion to bi-fuel CNG operation. A complete CNG fuel system has been designed and qualified, including fuel tanks, fuel system, and electrical interface. The completed vehicle has been safety and emission certified, demonstrating CARB Low Emission Vehicle (LEV) emissions in MY95. This paper details the design objectives, development process, CNG components, and integration of the two fuel systems.

This paper describes the development of an automated Door Test Facility for implementing the Door Component Test Methodology for side impact analysis. The automated targeting and loading of the door inner/trim panels with Side Impact Dummy (SID) ribcage, pelvis, and leg rams will greatly improve its test-to-test repeatability and expedite door/trim/armrest development/evaluation for verification with the dynamic side impact test of FMVSS 214 (Occupant Side Impact Protection). This test facility, which is capable of evaluating up to four (4) doors per day, provides a quick evaluation of door systems. The results generated from this test methodology provide accurate input data necessary for a MADYMO Side Impact Simulation Model. The test procedure and simulation results will be discussed.