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A method to improve the computational efficiency of analyzing wheeled vehicle systems on three-dimensional (3-D) roads has been developed. This was accomplished by creating a technique to incorporate the tire on a 3-D road in a multibody dynamics model of the vehicle with an approach that formulates the governing equations using symbolic formulation. For general handling analysis performed on the vehicle, the tire forces and moments are determined using a tire model that represents the tire as a set of mathematical expressions. Since these expressions need numerical values to determine the forces and moments, a symbolic solution does not exist. Therefore, the evaluation of the tire forces and moments needs to be done during simulation. However, symbolic operations can be used when the governing equations are formulated to develop an efficient method to evaluate these forces.

Hole expansion of a dual phase steel, DP600, was numerically investigated using a damage-based constitutive law to predict failure. The parameters governing void nucleation and coalescence were identified from an extensive review of the x-ray micro-tomography data available in the literature to ensure physically-sound predictions of damage evolution. A recently proposed technique to experimentally quantify work-hardening and damage in the shear-affected zone is incorporated into the damage model to enable fracture predictions of holes with sheared edges. Finite-element simulations of a hole expansion test with a conical punch were performed for both a punched and milled hole edge condition and the predicted hole expansion ratios are in very good agreement with the experiment values reported by several researchers.

Small crack growth from notches under variable amplitude loading requires that crack opening stress be followed on a cycle by cycle basis and taken into account in making fatigue life predictions. The use of constant amplitude fatigue life data that ignores changes in crack opening stress due to high stress overloads in variable amplitude fatigue leads to non-conservative fatigue life predictions. Similarly fatigue life predictions based on small crack growth calculations for cracks growing from flaws in notches are non-conservative when constant amplitude crack growth data are used. These non-conservative predictions have, in both cases, been shown to be due to severe reductions in fatigue crack closure arising from large (overload or underload) cycles in a typical service load history.

A control algorithm is developed for active/semi-active suspensions which can provide more comfort and better handling simultaneously. A weighting parameter is tuned online which is derived from two components - slow and fast adaptation to assign weights to comfort and handling. After establishing through simulations that the proposed adaptive control algorithm can demonstrate a performance better than some controllers in prior-art, it is implemented on an actual vehicle (Cadillac STS) which is equipped with MR dampers and several sensors. The vehicle is tested on smooth and rough roads and over speed bumps.

For fracture cracks that occurred in the tight coupling exhaust manifold durability test of a four-cylinder gasoline engine with EGR channel, causes and solutions for fracture failure were found with the help of CFD and FEA numerical simulations. Wall temperature and heat transfer coefficient of the exhaust manifold inside wall were first accurately obtained through the thermal-fluid coupling analysis, then thermal modal and thermoplastic analysis were acquired by using the finite element method, on account of the bolt pretightening force and the contact relationship between flange face and cylinder head. Results showed that the first-order natural frequency did not meet the design requirements, which was the main reason of fatigue fracture. However, when the first-order natural frequency was rising, the delta equivalent plastic strain was increasing quickly as well.

In order to predict the thermal fatigue life of the internal combustion engine exhaust manifold effectively, it was necessary to accurately obtain the unsteady heat transfer process between hot streams and exhaust manifold all the time. This paper began with the establishment of unsteady coupled heat transfer model by using serial coupling method of CFD and FEA numerical simulations, then the bidirectional thermal coupling analysis between fluid and structure was realized, as a result, the difficulty that the transient thermal boundary conditions were applied to the solid boundary was solved. What's more, the specific coupling mode, the physical quantities delivery method on the coupling interface and the surface mesh match were studied. On this basis, the differences between strong coupling method and portioned treatment for solving steady thermal stress numerical analysis were compared, and a more convenient and rapid method for solving static thermal stress was found.

The analysis of nickel metal hydride (Ni-MH) battery performance is very important for automotive researchers and manufacturers. The performance of a battery can be described as a direct consequence of various chemical and physical phenomena taking place inside the container. In this paper, a physics-based model of a Ni-MH battery will be presented. To analyze its performance, the efficiency of the battery is chosen as the performance measure, which is defined as the ratio of the energy output from the battery and the energy input to the battery while charging. Parametric sensitivity analysis will be used to generate sensitivity information for the state variables of the model. The generated information will be used to showcase how sensitivity information can be used to identify unique model behavior and how it can be used to optimize the capacity of the battery. The results will be validated using a finite difference formulation.

The performance of an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) that recovers heat from the exhaust of a heavy-duty diesel engine was simulated. The work was an extension of a prior study that simulated the performance of an experimental ORC system developed and tested at Oak Ridge National laboratory (ORNL). The experimental data were used to set model parameters and validate the results of that simulation. For the current study the model was adapted to consider a 15 liter turbocharged engine versus the original 1.9 liter light-duty automotive turbodiesel studied by ORNL. Exhaust flow rate and temperature data for the heavy-duty engine were obtained from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) for a range of steady-state engine speeds and loads without EGR. Because of the considerably higher exhaust gas flow rates of the heavy-duty engine, relative to the engine tested by ORNL, a different heat exchanger type was considered in order to keep exhaust pressure drop within practical bounds.

In summer, when vehicle parks in direct sunlight, the closed cabin temperature would rise sharply, which affects the occupants step-in-car comfort Solar powered vehicle parking ventilation system adopts the solar energy to drive the original ventilator. Thus, the cabin temperature could be dramatically decreased and the riding comfort could be also improved. This research analyzed the modified crew cabin thermal transfer model. Then the performance of the solar powered ventilation system is analyzed and optimized combined with the power supply characteristics of the photovoltaic element. The storage and reuse of the solar power is achieved on condition that the cabin temperature could be steadily controlled. The research shows that, the internal temperature is mainly affected by the solar radiation intensity and the environment temperature.

With the increasingly serious global environmental and energy problems, as well as the increasing number of vehicles, pure electric vehicles with its advantages of environmental protection, low noise and renewable energy, become an effective way to alleviate environmental pollution and energy crisis. Due to the current pure electric vehicle power battery technology is not perfect, the range of pure electric vehicle has a great limit. Through the braking energy recovery, the energy can be reused, the energy utilization rate can be improved, and the battery life of pure electric vehicles can be improved. In this paper, a pure electric vehicle is taken as the analysis object, and the whole vehicle analysis model is built. Through the comparative analysis, based on the driver's braking intention and vehicle running state, the braking energy recovery control strategy of double fuzzy control is proposed.

Recreational vehicles have a lot of potential consumers in China, especially the type C recreational vehicle is popular among consumers due to its advantages, prompting an increase in the production and sales volumes. The type C vehicle usually has a higher air drag than the common commercial vehicles due to its unique appearance. It can be reduced by optimizing the structural parameters, thus the energy consumed by the vehicle can be decreased. The external flow field of a recreational vehicle is analyzed by establishing its computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model. The characteristic of the RV’s external flow field is identified based on the simulation result. The approximation models of the vehicle roof parameters and air drag and vehicle volume are established by the response surface method (RSM). The vehicle roof parameters are optimized by multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MO-PSO).

With the shortage of energy and the continuous development of automotive technology, electric vehicles are gradually gaining popularity. The energy of electric vehicles mainly comes from the power grid, and its large-scale use is inseparable from the support of the power system. However, electric vehicles consume power quickly, have short driving ranges, and frequently charge, and there are plenty of problems such as disorder and randomness in charging, which is not conducive to rational planning of the power grid. Optimizing the charging problem of electric vehicles can not only save power resources but also bring huge economic benefits to operators of charging stations. In this paper, the CAN bus communication protocol, combined with GPS positioning, LabVIEW monitoring, GPRS transmitting and other technical means, can realize the information exchange of the "vehicle-charging device-distribution network".

Correct shifting schedule of vehicle coasting mode play a vital role in improving vehicle comfort and economy. At present, the calibration of the transmission shifting schedule ignores the impact of vehicle’s dynamic mass. This paper proposes a method for optimizing the shifting schedule of the coasting modes with gear based on the dynamic mass identification of the vehicle. This method identifies the dynamic mass of the vehicle during driving and substitute them into the process of solving the shifting schedule parameters. Then we get the optimal shifting schedule. At first, establish the Extended Kalman Filter to Pre-process the experimental data, reducing errors caused by excessive data fluctuations. Then, establishing a weighted squares estimation model based on particle swarm optimization to identify the dynamic mass of the vehicle.

In winter, the temperature of the coldest month is below -20°C. Low temperature makes it difficult to start a diesel engine, combust sufficiently, which increases fuel consumption and pollutes the environment. The use of an electric power-driven auxiliary heating system increases the battery load and power consumption. Solar thermal energy has the advantages of easy access, clean and pollution-free. The coolant in the cylinder block of the diesel engine has a large contact area within the cylinder and is evenly distributed, which can be used as a heat transfer medium for the warm-up. A one-dimensional heat transfer model of the diesel engine block for the coolant warm-up is developed, and the total heat required for the warm-up is calculated by an iterative method in combination with the warm-up target.

The hydraulic retarder is the most stabilized auxiliary braking system [1-2] of heavy-duty vehicles. When the hydraulic retarder is working during auxiliary braking, all of the braking energy is transferred into the thermal energy of the transmission medium of the working wheel. Theoretically, the residual heat-sinking capability of the engine could be used to cool down the transmission medium of the hydraulic retarder, in order to ensure the proper functioning of the hydraulic retarder. Never the less, the hydraulic retarder is always placed at the tailing head of the gearbox, far from the engine, long cooling circuits, which increases the risky leakage risk of the transmission medium. What's more, the development trend of heavy load and high speed vehicle directs the significant increase in the thermal load of the hydraulic retarder, which even higher than the engine power.

In the field of active safety, the active four-wheel-steering (4WS) system seems to be an attractive alternative and an effective tool to improve the vehicles' handling stability in lane-keeping control performance. Under normal using condition, the vehicle's lateral acceleration is comparatively small, and the mathematic relationship between the small side force excitation and the small slip angle of the tire is in the linear region. Furthermore, the effects of roll, heave, and pitch motions are neglected as well as the dynamic characteristics of the tires and suspension system in this work. Therefore, the linear quadratic control (LQC) theory is used to ensure that the output of the 4WS control system can keep track of the desired yaw rate and zero-sideslip-angle response can also be realized at the same time.

The performance, life cycle cost, and safety of electric and hybrid electric vehicles (EVs and HEVs) depend strongly on their energy storage system. Advanced batteries such as lithium-ion (Li-ion) polymer batteries are quite viable options for storing energy in EVs and HEVs. In addition, thermal management is essential for achieving the desired performance and life cycle from a particular battery. Therefore, to design a thermal management system, a designer must study the thermal characteristics of batteries. The thermal characteristics that are needed include the surface temperature distribution, heat flux, and the heat generation from batteries under various charge/discharge profiles. Therefore, in the first part of the research, surface temperature distribution from a lithium-ion pouch cell (20Ah capacity) is studied under different discharge rates of 1C, 2C, 3C, and 4C.

In this paper, a consensus framework for cooperative parameter estimation within the vehicular network is presented. It is assumed that each vehicle is equipped with a dedicated short range communication (DSRC) device and connected to other vehicles. The improvement achieved by the consensus for parameter estimation in presence of sensor’s noise is studied, and the effects of network nodes and edges on the consensus performance is discussed. Finally, the simulation results of the introduced cooperative estimation algorithm for estimation of the unknown parameter of road condition is presented. It is shown that due to the faster dynamic of network communication, single agents’ estimation converges to the least square approximation of the unknown parameter properly.

Energy management strategies greatly influence the power performance and fuel economy of series hybrid electric tracked bulldozers. In this paper, we present a procedure for the design of a power management strategy by defining a cost function, in this case, the minimization of the vehicle’s fuel consumption over a driving cycle. To explore the fuel-saving potential of a series hybrid electric tracked bulldozer, a dynamic programming (DP) algorithm is utilized to determine the optimal control actions for a series hybrid powertrain, and this can be the benchmark for the assessment of other control strategies. The results from comparing the DP strategy and the rule-based control strategy indicate that this procedure results in approximately a 7% improvement in fuel economy.

The interactions between automatic controls, physics, and driver is an important step towards highly automated driving. This study investigates the dynamical interactions between human-selected driving modes, vehicle controller and physical plant parameters, to determine how to optimally adapt powertrain control to different human-like driving requirements. A cyber-physical system (CPS) based framework is proposed for co-design optimization of the physical plant parameters and controller variables for an electric powertrain, in view of vehicle’s dynamic performance, ride comfort, and energy efficiency under different driving modes. System structure, performance requirements and constraints, optimization goals and methodology are investigated. Intelligent powertrain control algorithms are synthesized for three driving modes, namely sport, eco, and normal modes, with appropriate protocol selections. The performance exploration methodology is presented.