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Recent years, electric vehicles (EVs) have been widely used as urban transit buses in China, but high costs and a dwindling driving distance caused mainly by relatively frequent usage rate have put the electric bus in a difficult position. Range-extended electric bus (REEbus) is taken as an ideal transitional powertrain configuration, but its efficiency is not so high. Besides, with less batteries to endure more frequently charging and discharging, the lifecycle of battery pack can also be shorten. Aiming at it, range-extended electric powertrains with diverse energy storage systems (ESSs) and proper auxiliary power unit (APU) control strategies are matched and compared to find most proper ESS configuration for REEbus through simulation, which is based on a 12 meter-long urban bus.

The increasingly stringent emission regulations have mandated the use of CCRT (catalyzed continuously regeneration trap) made by upstream DOC (diesel oxidation catalyst) and downstream CDPF (catalyzed diesel particulate filter) for heavy-duty diesel vehicles, which is proved to be the only way that can efficiently control the gaseous and particulate emissions. The performance of after-treatment is greatly influenced by the running conditions of the diesel vehicle and its exhaust parameters, so this paper intended to use grey relational analysis to study the correlation between running conditions (velocity, acceleration, VSP (vehicle specific power)), exhaust parameters (exhaust flow rate, DOC inlet temperature, concentrations of CO, THC, O2 and NOX) and the performance of DOC and CCRT based on chassis dynamometer test. Results showed that the effect of DOC on CO and THC is mainly affected by exhaust flow rate, exhaust temperature and THC concentration.

Regulated gaseous and particulate matter (PM) emissions in the exhaust from a heavy duty diesel engine with biodiesel fuel were studied, and the emission characteristics of PM and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) emissions in PM were highlighted. In the experiment, pure diesel fuel and B10 (a blend of diesel and biodiesel fuels with the volume ratio of 9 to 1) fuel were chosen. The study shows that, compared to the pure diesel, the emissions of PM, soluble organic fractions (SOF) and PAHs from the heavy duty diesel engine decrease when the engine burns B10 fuel, and the nitrogen oxides (NOx) emission slightly increases, while the unburned hydrocarbon (HC) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions also decline. Among the detected 12 kinds of PAHs, emission concentrations of 10 kinds of PAHs from the engine with B10 descend. Especially Benzo(a)pyrene equivalent toxicity (BEQ) analysis results show that the BEQ of B10 fuel decreases by 15.2% compared to pure diesel.

In this study, effects of altitude on free diesel spray morphology, macroscopic spray characteristics and air-fuel mixing process were investigated. The diesel spray visualization experiment using high-speed photography was performed in a constant volume chamber which reproduced the injection diesel-like thermodynamic conditions of a heavy-duty turbocharged diesel engine operating at sea level and 1000 m, 2000 m, 3000 m and 4500 m above sea level. The results showed that the spray morphology became narrower and longer at higher altitude, and small vortex-like structures were observed on the downstream spray periphery. Spray penetration increased and spray angle decreased with increasing altitude. At altitudes of 0 m, 1000 m, 2000 m, 3000 m and 4500 m, the spray penetration at 1.45 ms after start of injection (ASOI) were 79.54 mm, 80.51 mm, 81.49 mm, 83.29 mm and 88.92 mm respectively, and the spray angle were 10.9°, 10.8°, 10.7°, 10.4°and 9.8° respectively.

Lane marking detection plays a crucial role in Autonomous Driving Systems or Advanced Driving Assistance System. Vision based lane marking detection technology has been well discussed and put into practical application. LiDAR is more stable for challenging environment compared to cameras, and with the development of LiDAR technology, price and lifetime are no longer an issue. We propose a lane marking detection algorithm based on solid-state LiDARs. First a series of data pre-processing operations were done for the solid-state LiDARs with small field of view, and the needed ground points are extracted by the RANSAC method. Then, based on the OTSU method, we propose an approach for extracting lane marking points using intensity information.

Aiming at the test safety problems in the early stage of self-driving cars development, firstly the virtual vehicle on-board CAN data acquisition module of the present project was designed based on virtual LabVIEW. Then a wireless remote control system for the self-driving car was constructed, which integrated the built virtual vehicle on-board CAN data acquisition system, the remote real-time image monitoring module and the remote upper computer control module based on ZigBee wireless transmission. It can execute the environmental awareness training and continuous and complex motion manipulation testing of the vehicle without relying on the driver, which can solve the safety problems in the tests of initial development of self-driving cars. Finally, the four-wheel independent steering electric vehicle was used as the self-driving test vehicle, and the wireless remote control system was tested on the double lane change type path and S-type path.

In this paper, an equivalent conversion method is proposed to apply the six-dimensional force road spectrum of the four-axle vehicle on the same platform to the three-axle through the axle load comparison. Further, the feasibility of the devolved equivalent conversion method is verified, and the fatigue performance improvement of the wishbone support structure of a commercial vehicle is finally achieved. Specifically, firstly, the load spectrum at each attachment point of the suspension for the three-axle vehicle is obtained through the iteration of the multi-body dynamic model. Furthermore, the finite element model of the suspension for the three-axle vehicle is established; the analysis of fatigue life for the suspension structure is performed by extracting stress amplitude through the multi-axis cyclic counting method and calculating equivalent force amplitude through McDiarmid’s criterion, combined with the SN curve of the material.

The displacement of the shaft head fails to be accurately measured while the three-axle heavy-duty truck is driving on the reinforced pavement. In order to obtain accurate fatigue load spectrum of the suspension bracket, the acceleration signals of the shaft heads of the suspension obtained by the reinforced pavement test measurement are virtually iterated as responses. A more accurate model of the rigid-flexible coupled multi-body dynamics (MBD) of the whole vehicle is established by introducing a flexible frame based on the comprehensive modal theory. Furthermore, the vertical displacements of the shaft heads are obtained by the reverse solution of the virtual iterative method with well-pleasing precision. The accuracy of the virtual iteration is verified by comparing the simulation results with the vertical acceleration of the shaft head under the reinforced pavement in the time domain and damage domain.

With the growing prosperity of the long-distance freight and urban logistics industry, the demand for cargo trucks is gradually increasing. The connecting bracket is the critical connecting part of the truck chassis, which bears the load transmitted by the road excitation and reduces the damage to the frame caused by the load. However, the occurrence of rough road conditions is inevitable in heavy-duty transportation. In this paper, road durability tests and fatigue life analysis are carried out on the original structure to ensure the safety of the vehicle. Based on the known boundary and load constraints, a lightweight and high-performance structure is obtained through size optimization, as the original structure cannot meet the performance requirements. Firstly, the road test was conducted on the truck where the original bracket structure is located.

A tractor-trailer vehicle (TTV) consists of an actuated tractor attached with several full trailers. Because of its nonlinear and noncompleted constraints, it is a challenging task to avoid collisions for path planner. In this paper, we propose an efficient method to plan an optimal trajectory for TTV to reach the destination without any collision. To deal with the complicated constraints, the trajectory planning problem is formulated as an optimal control problem uniformly, which can be solved by the interior point method. A novel incremental optimization solving algorithm (IOSA) is proposed to accelerate the optimization process, which makes the number of trailers and the size of obstacles increase asynchronously. Simulation experiments are carried out in two scenarios with static obstacles. Compared with other methods, the results show that the planning method with IOSA outperforms in the efficiency.

The present work discusses the effects of intake manifold water injection in a six-cylinder heavy duty natural gas (NG) engine through one-dimensional simulation. The numerical study was carried out based on GT-Power under different engine working conditions. The established simulation model was firstly calibrated in detail through the whole engine speed sweep under full load conditions before the model of intake manifold water injector was involved, and the calibration was based on experimental data. The intake manifold water injection mass was controlled through adjustment of intake water/gas (water/natural gas) ratio, a water/gas ratio swept from 0 to 4 was selected to investigate the effects of intake manifold water injection on engine performance and emissions characteristics. On the other hand, the enhancement potential of intake manifold water injection in heavy duty NG engine under lean and stoichiometric condition was also investigated by the alteration of air-fuel ratio.

In this study, the real-world NOx and particle emissions of buses burning pure diesel fuel (D100), biodiesel fuel with 20% blend ratio (B20) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) were measured with portable emission measurement system (PEMS). The measurement conducted at 6 constant speed, which ranged from 10km/h to 60 km/h at 10km/h intervals, and a period of free driving condition. The relationship between vehicle specific power (VSP) and NOx/particle emissions of each bus were analyzed. The results show that the change rules of NOx, PN and PM emission factors with the increase of VSP were basically the same for the same bus, but for the bus using different fuel, the change rules may change. In VSP bin 0, the vehicles were mostly in idle condition and the emission factors of NOx, PN and PM of three buses were all in a relatively high level. In low VSP interval, which ranged from bin 0 to bin 4, the emissions of three buses first decreased and then increased with the growth of VSP.

Range extended electric vehicles achieve significant reductions in fuel consumption by employing as an energy source a small displacement combustion engine that is optimized for high efficiency at one, or a few, operating points. The present paper examines the impact of various energy management strategies on the particulate emissions from the auxiliary power unit (APU) of a range extended electric bus, including optimized auxiliary power unit (APU) on/off strategy, single-point strategy, two-point strategy, power-following strategy and equivalent fuel consumption minimization strategy (ECMS). In addition, this paper also compares the particulate emissions of single energy storage system and composite energy storage system on single-point energy management strategy.

The performances of heavy-duty natural gas engines have been limited by combustion temperature and NOx emissions for a long time. Recently, water injection technology has been widely considered as a technical solution in reducing fuel consumption and emissions simultaneously in both gasoline and diesel engines. This paper focuses on the impacts of intake manifold water injection on characteristics of combustion and emissions in a natural gas heavy-duty engine through numerical methods. A computational model was setup and validated with experimental data of pressure traces in a CFD software coupled with detailed chemical kinetics. The simulation was mainly carried out in low-speed and full-load conditions, and knock level was also measured and calculated by maximum amplitude of pressure oscillations (MAPO).

Previous studies have indicated that longer torque increase time benefits the reduction of emissions during transient process for a diesel engine. However, quantitative conclusions on reduction of emissions and effects on fuel economy have not been made clear so far. The aim of this study was to evaluate the transient process of diesel engine under different torque increase time, and to find the quantitative statement between torque increase time, fuel economy and engine-out emissions. To do this, experiment was carried out on a 7L common rail diesel engine used for commercial vehicles. Three engine speeds (1100r·min−1, 1300r·min−1 and 1500r·min−1) were chosen to represent an engine working range. For each speed, the engine torque is increased within different time (0.5s, 1s, 2s and 5s). It was shown that, in the transient process mentioned above, engine torque increase time effects fuel economy, smoke opacity and CO emission.

As the commercial vehicle increases staggeringly in China, environmental pollution and excessively fuel consumption can't be neglected anymore. Vehicle thermal management has been adopted by many vehicle manufactures as an ideal alternative to reduce fuel consumption and exhaust emission by its cost-efficient and effective merit. In addition, the components in heavy duty commercial vehicle engine hood may suffer overheat harm. Hence investigating the thermal characteristics in engine hood can be an effective way to identify and dismiss the potential overheat harm. In terms of this, the paper has adopted CFD simulation method to obtain the comprehensive thermal flow field characteristics of engine hood in a heavy commercial vehicle. Then by analyzing the thermal flow field in engine hood, concerning optimization strategies were put forward to improve the thermal environment.

As a critical technology for autonomous vehicles, high precise positioning is essential for automated container terminals to implement intelligent dispatching and to improve container transport efficiency. Because of the unstable performance of global positioning system (GPS) in some circumstances, an ultra wide band (UWB) positioning system is developed for autonomous trucks in an automated container terminal. In this paper, an asynchronous structure is adopted in the system, and a three-dimensional (3D) localization method is proposed. Other than a traditional UWB positioning system with a server, in this asynchronous system, positions are calculated in the vehicle. Therefore, propagation delays from the server to vehicles are eliminated, and the real-time performance can be significantly improved. Traditional 3D localization methods based on time difference of arrival (TDOA) are mostly invalid with anchors in the same plane.

The cab is an essential part of a light truck, and its fatigue durability performance plays an important role in the design and development stage. Accelerated fatigue bench test has been widely applied to product development of carmakers for its low cost and short development cycle. However, in reality, interference exists generally in torsional conditions for the light truck cab when tested on the 4-post vehicle road simulation system. To solve this problem and minimize the lateral force applied on the hydraulic cylinders, the direction and size combinations of displacement release about front and rear suspensions were discussed based on multi-body dynamics simulation and fixture design theory in this paper. Through comparative study, the optimum design and layout scheme of fixtures was determined to conduct the next test procedure. The weak positions of the light truck cab were firstly predicted by utilizing finite element method (FEM) and fatigue analysis theory.

The Chinese government and industries have proposed strategic plans and policies for automotive renewable-energy transformation in response to China’s commitments to peak the national carbon emissions before 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. We thus analyze the evolution of carbon emissions from the vehicle fleet in China with our data-driven models based on these plans. Our results indicate that the vehicle life-cycle carbon emissions are appreciable, accounting for 8.9% of the national total and 11.3% of energy combustion in 2020. Commercial vehicles are the primary source of automotive carbon emissions, accounting for about 60% of the vehicle energy cycle. Among these, heavy-duty trucks are the most important, producing 38.99% of the total carbon emissions in the vehicle operation stage in 2020 and 52.18% in 2035.

Brake judder affects vehicle safety and comfort, making it a key area of research in brake NVH. Transfer path analysis is effective for analyzing and reducing brake judder. However, current studies mainly focus on passenger cars, with limited investigation into commercial vehicles. The complex chassis structures of commercial vehicles involve multiple transfer paths, resulting in extensive data and testing challenges. This hinders the analysis and suppression of brake judder using transfer path analysis. In this study, we propose a simulation-based method to investigate brake judder transfer paths in commercial vehicles. Firstly, road tests were conducted to investigate the brake judder of commercial vehicles. Time-domain analysis, order characteristics analysis, and transfer function analysis between components were performed.