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Having, by now, introduced several new vehicles that comply with FMVSS 202a, manufacturers are reporting an increased number of complaints from consumers who find that the head restraint is too close; negatively affecting their posture. It is speculated that one of the reasons that head restraints meeting the new requirement are problematic is that the FMVSS backset measurement is performed at a back angle that is more reclined than the back angle most drivers choose and the back angle at which the seat / vehicle was designed. The objective of this paper is to confirm this hypothesis and elaborate on implications for regulatory compliance in FMVSS 202a.

New European emissions legislation (Euro5) specifies a limit for Particle Number (PN) emissions and therefore drives measurement of PN during vehicle development and homologation. Concurrently, the use of biofuel is increasing in the marketplace, and Euro5 specifies that reference fuel must contain a bio-derived portion. Work was carried out to test the effect of fuels containing different levels of Fatty Acid Methyl Ester (FAME) on particle number, size, mass and composition. Measurements were conducted with a Cambustion Differential Mobility Spectrometer (DMS) to time-resolve sub-micron particles (5-1000nm), and a Horiba Solid Particle Counting System (SPCS) providing PN data from a Euro5-compliant measurement system. To ensure the findings are relevant to the modern automotive business, testing was carried out on a Euro4 compliant passenger car fitted with a high-pressure common-rail diesel engine and using standard homologation procedures.

Incremental Sheet Forming (ISF) is an emerging sheet metal prototyping technology where a part is formed as one or more stylus tools are moving in a pre-determined path and deforming the sheet metal locally while the sheet blank is clamped along its periphery. A deformation analysis of incremental forming process is presented in this paper. The analysis includes the development of an analytical model for strain distributions based on part geometry and tool paths; and numerical simulations of the forming process with LS-DYNA. A skew cone is constructed and used as an example for the study. Analytical and numerical results are compared, and excellent correlations are found. It is demonstrated that the analytical model developed in this paper is reliable and efficient in the prediction of strain distributions for incremental forming process.

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.

When a vehicle with a partially filled fuel tank undergoes sudden acceleration, braking, turning or pitching motion, fuel sloshing is experienced. It is important to establish a CAE methodology to accurately predict slosh phenomenon. Fuel slosh can lead to many failure modes such as noise, erroneous fuel indication, irregular fuel supply at low fuel level and durability issues caused by high impact forces on tank surface and internal parts. This paper summarizes activities carried out by the fuel system team at Ford Motor Company to develop and validate such CAE methodology. In particular two methods are discussed here. The first method is Volume Of Fluid (VOF) based incompressible multiphase Eulerian transient CAE method. The CFD solvers used here are Star CD and Star CCM+. The second method incorporates Fluid-Structure interaction (FSI) using Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) formulation.

Available methodologies for model bias identification are mainly regression-based approaches, such as Gaussian process, Bayesian inference-based models and so on. Accuracy and efficiency of these methodologies may degrade for characterizing the model bias when more system inputs are considered in the prediction model due to the curse of dimensionality for regression-based approaches. This paper proposes a copula-based approach for model bias identification without suffering the curse of dimensionality. The main idea is to build general statistical relationships between the model bias and the model prediction including all system inputs using copulas so that possible model bias distributions can be effectively identified at any new design configurations of the system. Two engineering case studies whose dimensionalities range from medium to high will be employed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the copula-based approach.

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

Two-stroke gasoline engines are known to benefit from using in-cylinder fuel injection which improves their ability to meet the strict fuel economy and exhaust emissions requirements. A conventional method of in-cylinder fuel injection involves application of plunger-type positive displacement pumps. Two-stroke engines are usually smaller and lighter than their 4-stroke counterparts of equal power and need a pump that should also be small and light and, preferably, simple in construction. Because a 2-stroke engine fires every crankshaft revolution, its fuel injection pump must run at crankshaft speed (twice the speed of a 4-stroke engine pump). An electronically controlled fuel injection system has been designed to satisfy the needs of a small automotive 2-stroke engine capable of running at speeds of up to 6000 rpm.

Ford is introducing the first high volume domestically designed and produced overhead camshaft V-8 engine As the first entry of a family of V-8 engines, the 4.6L 2 valve per cylinder engine was created to replace Ford's work-horse small block V-8 family of pushrod engines. That family of engines was first produced in 1962 in a 221 cu. in. version and have since evolved into the 302 cu. in. (5.0L) engine which previously powered the Town Car. Design goals of the engine family were: Higher horsepower output combined with reduced engine displacement Improved fuel efficiency and reduced emissions Reduced noise and vibration Advanced technology Precision manufacturing Improved quality and durability Program Execution was accomplished by extensive use of teamwork processes, including Cross Functional Teams (CFTs) among Design Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Suppliers, Purchasing and Vehicle Engineering.

The modeling of plastic fuel tank systems for crash safety applications has been very challenging. The major challenges include the prediction of fuel sloshing in high speed impact conditions, the modeling of multilayer thermoplastic fuel tanks with post-forming (non-uniform) material properties, and the modeling of tank straps with pre-tensions. Extensive studies can be found in the literature to improve the prediction of fuel sloshing. However, little research had been conducted to model the post-forming fuel tank and to address the tension between the fuel tank and the tank straps for crash safety simulations. Hoping to help improve the modeling of fuel systems, the authors made the first attempt to tackle these major challenges all at once in this study by dividing the modeling of the fuel tank into eight stages. An ALE (Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian) method was adopted to simulate the interaction between the fuel and the tank.

During the 1980s, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) incorporated the R factor into fuel economy calculations in order to address concerns about the impacts of test fuel property variations on corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) compliance, which is determined using the Federal Test Procedure (FTP) and Highway Fuel Economy Test (HFET) cycles. The R factor is defined as the ratio of the percent change in fuel economy to the percent change in volumetric heating value for tests conducted using two differing fuels. At the time the R-factor was devised, tests using representative vehicles initially indicated that an appropriate value for the R factor was 0.6. Reassessing the R factor has recently come under renewed interest after EPA's March 2013 proposal to adjust the properties of certification gasoline to contain significant amounts of ethanol.

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.

A single-cylinder Direct Injection Spark Ignition (DISI) engine with optical access was used to investigate the effects of ethanol/gasoline blends on in-cylinder formation of particulate matter (PM) and fuel spray characteristics. Indolene was used as a baseline fuel and two blends of 50% and 85% ethanol (by volume, balance indolene) were investigated. Time resolved thermal radiation (incandescence/natural luminosity) of soot particles and fuel spray characteristics were recorded using a high speed camera. The images were analyzed to quantify soot formation in units of relative image intensity as a function of important engine operating conditions, including ethanol concentration in the fuel, fuel injection timing (250, 300 and 320° bTDC), and coolant temperature (25°C and 90°C). Spatially-integrated incandescence was used as a metric to quantify the level of in-cylinder PM formed at the different operating conditions.

Engine dynamometer testing was performed comparing fuels having different octane ratings and ethanol content in a Ford 3.5L direct injection turbocharged (EcoBoost) engine at three compression ratios (CRs). The fuels included midlevel ethanol “splash blend” and “octane-matched blend” fuels, E10-98RON (U.S. premium), and E85-108RON. For the splash blends, denatured ethanol was added to E10-91RON, which resulted in E20-96RON and E30-101 RON. For the octane-matched blends, gasoline blendstocks were formulated to maintain constant RON and MON for E10, E20, and E30. The match blend E20-91RON and E30-91RON showed no knock benefit compared to the baseline E10-91RON fuel. However, the splash blend E20-96RON and E10-98RON enabled 11.9:1 CR with similar knock performance to E10-91RON at 10:1 CR. The splash blend E30-101RON enabled 13:1 CR with better knock performance than E10-91RON at 10:1 CR. As expected, E85-108RON exhibited dramatically better knock performance than E30-101RON.

This paper presents engine dynamometer testing and modeling analysis of ethanol compared to gasoline at part load conditions where the engine was not knock-limited with either fuel. The purpose of this work was to confirm the efficiency improvement for ethanol reported in published papers, and to quantify the components of the improvement. Testing comparing E85 to E0 gasoline was conducted in an alternating back-to-back manner with multiple data points for each fuel to establish high confidence in the measured results. Approximately 4% relative improvement in brake thermal efficiency (BTE) was measured at three speed-load points. Effects on BTE due to pumping work and emissions were quantified based on the measured engine data, and accounted for only a small portion of the difference.

The small-displacement direct-injection (DI) diesel engine is a prime candidate for future transportation needs because of its high thermal efficiency combined with near term production feasibility. Ford Motor Company and FEV Engine Technology, Inc. are working together with the US Department of Energy to develop a small displacement DI diesel engine that meets the key challenges of emissions, NVH, and power density. The targets for the engine are to meet ULEV emission standards while maintaining a best fuel consumption of 200g/kW-hr. The NVH performance goal is transparency with state-of-the-art, four-cylinder gasoline vehicles. Advanced features are required to meet the ambitious targets for this engine. Small-bore combustion systems enable the downsizing of the engine required for high fuel economy with the NVH advantages a four- cylinder has over a three-cylinder engine.

A model of Ford's current FTP based OBD-II catalyst monitor has been developed and used in determining the optimal monitored catalyst volume for several LEV applications. The model predictions were found to agree reasonably well with the available experimental data. Furthermore, the results of this study indicate that the optimal monitored catalyst volume for meeting LEV requirements is vehicle application specific. As a result, it is concluded that a general guideline for sizing of the monitored catalyst volume for LEVs will most likely be inadequate and could result in grossly suboptimal catalyst monitor function for some applications. The model which is described in this paper offers a potentially more effective means of determining the best monitored catalyst volume for a given vehicle application. It should be possible to utilize this model during the early phase of a vehicle program in order to provide for the optimal packaging of the catalyst monitor sensor (CMS).

Ford Motor Company is researching and developing multiple propulsion strategies which include advanced gasoline engines, clean diesel, flexible fuel (ethanol blends up to E-85), hybrids and hydrogen propulsion, both in internal combustion (IC) engines and fuel cells. Hydrogen utilized as a transportation fuel is viewed as a long term solution as it is sustainable and clean when derived from renewable resources. The development and use of hydrogen IC engine (H2ICE) technology can readily be utilized to drive the transition strategy from the petroleum economy to the hydrogen economy. Because the “more conventional” H2ICE systems can be brought to market more quickly and in higher volume, business initiatives for hydrogen fueling infrastructure and other hydrogen complimentary required technologies can be realized sooner. To that end Ford has fully re-engineered a 6.8L Triton V-10 engine to run on hydrogen and power an E-450 shuttle van.

Oscillating heat transfer is a fundamental phenomenon occurring in Stirling machines and IC engines. A group of relevant dimensionless numbers which characterize this problem is identified by dimensional analysis. The convective heat transfer coefficient, or Nusselt number, is a function of the Reynolds number, the Prandtl number, plus the dynamic Reynolds number and the dimensionless amplitude, when compressibility is not considered. The case for compressible fluid is more complicated. An experiential study confirms above analysis and results in a nonlinear longitudinal fluid temperature distribution in the pipe. The history effect is found to affect the heat transfer rate remarkably. A correlation equation for Nusselt number is obtained by multivariate analysis.

Fuel-air mixing in a direct-injection SI engine was studied to further improve full-load torque output. The fuel-injection location of DI vs. PFI results in different heat sources for fuel evaporation, hence a DI engine has been found to exhibit higher volumetric efficiency and lower knocking tendency, resulting in higher full-load torque output [1]. The ability to change injection timing of the DI engine affects heat transfer and mixture temperature, hence later injection results in lower knocking tendency. Both the higher volumetric efficiency and the lower knocking tendency can improve engine torque output. Improving volumetric efficiency requires that the fuel is injected during the intake stroke. Reducing knocking tendency, in contrast, requires that the fuel is injected late during the compression stroke. Thus, a strategy of split injection was proposed to compromise the two competing requirements and further increase direct-injection SI engine torque output.