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The NVH study of trimmed vehicle body is essential in improving the passenger comfort and optimizing the vehicle weight. Efficient modal finite-element approaches are widely used in the automotive industry for investigating the frequency response of large vibro-acoustic systems involving a body structure coupled to an acoustic cavity. In order to accurately account for the localized and frequency-dependant damping mechanism of the trim components, a direct physical approach is however preferred. Thus, a hybrid modal-physical approach combines both efficiency and accuracy for large trimmed body analysis. Dynamic loads and exterior acoustic loads can then be applied on the trimmed body model in order to evaluate the transfer functions between these loads and the acoustic response in the car compartment.

It is known that SEA is a rapid and simple methodology for analyzing complex vibroacoustic systems. However, the SEA principle is not always valid and one has to be careful about the physical conditions at which the SEA principle is acceptable. In this study, the appropriate damping loss factor of the vehicle interior cavity is studied in the viewpoint of the modal overlap factor of the cavity and the decay per mean free path (DMFP) of the cavity. Virtual SEA tests are performed with an FE model combination, which is suggested by a previous study of Stelzer et al. for the simulation of the sound transmission loss (STL) of vehicle panel structure. The FE model combination is consisting of the body in white (BIW), an acoustical-excited hemisphere-shaped exterior cavity, and the interior cavity. It is found that the DMFP of the interior cavity is appropriate between 0.5 ~ 1 dB for applying SEA principle.

High-voltage battery system plays a critical role in eco-friendly vehicles due to its effect on the cost and the electric driving range of eco-friendly vehicles. In order to secure the customer pool and the competitiveness of eco-vehicle technology, vehicle electrification requires lowering the battery cost and satisfying the customer needs when driving the vehicles in the real roads, for example, maximizing powers for fun drive, increasing battery capacities for achieving appropriate trip distances, etc. Because these vehicle specifications have a critical effect on the high-voltage battery specification, the key technology of the vehicle electrification is the appropriate decision on the specification of the high-voltage battery system, such as battery capacity and power. These factors affect the size of battery system and vehicle under floor design and also the profitability of the eco-friendly vehicles.

Passenger fatigue during long distance driving is greatly influenced by the comfort performance of the seat. Seat comfort performance is determined by the appropriate contour of the seat and the appropriate pad with sufficient thickness. The height of vehicle has been lowered to enhance car styling, and battery for electric vehicle applied to the underbody of the vehicle, reducing the package space of the seat in the vehicle. These external factors eventually lead to a reduced pad thickness of the seat cushion and compromise one of the important components in the seat cushion compartment, creating an uncomfortable cushioning problem when driving long distances. To improve the cushion composition of the seat within a limited package, air bladders are applied to the underside of the cushion pad. In addition, the function to support the buttocks using the air bladders of the lower cushion, similar to lumbar support for the back, was implemented to improve cushion comfort performance.

The windshield is an integral part of almost every modern passenger car. Combined with current developments in the automotive industry such as electrification and the integration of lightweight material systems, the reduction of interior noise caused by stochastic and transient wind excitation is deemed to be an increasing challenge for future NVH measures. Active control systems have proven to be a viable alternative compared to traditional passive NVH measures in different areas. However, for windshield actuation there are neither comparative studies nor actually established actuation concepts available to the automotive industry. This paper illustrates a comparative conceptual study on windshield actuation for the active control of wind noise in a passenger car. Making use of an experimental modal analysis of the windshield installed in a medium-sized vehicle, a reduced order numerical simulation model is derived.

An airborne SEA model to predict high frequency interior noise is built for a mid-size sedan. The 60 KPH running condition is simulated based on this model and then the corresponding result is compared to the measured interior noise. A very similar prediction is found. Also, weak points of sound insulation and effective absorption area in this vehicle are identified using the model. It is shown that in an early design stage and when the proto vehicle is not available yet, the airborne SEA model is very useful to find out weak points of vehicle sound packages.

This paper introduces a systematic wiring guideline which includes coupling noise calculation, wire layout design, and wire type selection methodologies. The coupling theory between wires has been introduced long time ago but it was not successfully applied to real automotive wiring design due to the complexity in the theory such as large number of parameters and many different conditions in automotive wiring environment. In this paper, the complexity is reduced by separating physical parameters and electrical parameters and identifying controllable parameters and given parameters. This paper first introduces parameters which are used in the coupling equations and automotive wiring design, then the coupling noise calculation method which uses the coupling equations is introduced. The systematic automotive wiring guideline which prevents noise problem in various design stage such as system filter design, wire layout design, wire type selection is introduced.

In order to understand the automotive PEM fuel cell system, mathematical system modeling is conducted and the model is implemented and simulated by using the Matlab®/Simulink®. The components such as fuel cell stack, air supplier, and radiator are modeled individually and integrated into a system level. The PEM fuel cell system operation control includes thermal management, air supply control, hydrogen supply control, fuel cell stack protection control, and load following control. In the thermal management, the inlet and outlet temperature of coolant are controlled to operate the fuel cell stack in desired temperature range and to prevent flooding inside the fuel cell stack. In air supply control and hydrogen supply control, the flow rates of air and hydrogen are controlled not to starve the fuel cell stack according to the output current. A control structure for the system is developed and confirmed by using the developed simulation model.

The alternator provides power to vehicle electrical loads with the battery, and its maximum current depends on various factors such as electrical load, engine speed, thermal condition, and other variables. Above all, thermal effects make alternator simulations more complicated. For example statically similar conditions may show different results according to the temperature variation for each alternator operation. This paper proposes a two-stage statistically-based model structure which separates dynamic thermal effects from steady state performance. The method was validated by experiments and shows good predictive performance, suitable for use in test reduction.

This paper proposes a modeling technique which is able to not only reliably and easily represent the hysteretic characteristics but also analyze the dynamic stress of a taper leaf spring. The flexible multi-body dynamic model of the taper leaf spring is developed by interfacing the finite element model and computation model of the taper leaf spring. Rigid dummy parts are attached at the places where a finite element leaf model is in contact with an adjacent one in order to apply contact model. Friction is defined in the contact model to represent the hysteretic phenomenon of the taper leaf spring. The test of the taper leaf spring is conducted for the validation of the reliability of the flexible multi-body dynamic model of the taper leaf spring developed in this paper. The test is started at an unloaded state with the excitation amplitude of 1∼2mm/sec and frequency of 132mm. First, the simulation is conducted with the same condition as the test.

Applying BSM (Balance shaft module) is a very common and effective way to reduce the 2nd-order powertrain vibration which is caused by the ill-balanced inertia force due to the oscillating masses inside an engine. However, the adoption of a BSM can also produce undesirable things especially in cost, fuel economy, starting performance, and so on. Therefore, for small vehicles, in which case cost and weight are key factors at the development stage, it is often required to develop competitive NVH performance without the expensive apparatus like a BSM. In this paper, in order to develop interior noise and vibration of a 4-cylinder vehicle without a BSM, we analyzed the contribution of some transfer paths for powertrain vibration, and could reduce interior booming noise by tuning the dynamic characteristic of the engine mount which was one of the largest transfer paths.

For a complete automotive HVAC system, it is desirable to keep good air quality control for the interior vehicle cabin. This experimental study for evaluating the CO2 concentration levels in a vehicle cabin was done on the roads in South Korea. Increasing levels of CO2 can cause a passenger to become tired, sleepy and cause headaches or discomfort. The study results shows that CO2 and fine dust concentration is a result of the number of passengers,_driving condition and HVAC user settings. The result from this investigation can be used to establish a development guide for air quality in a vehicle cabin.

With the advent of cars with computerized engines, drivers sometimes suffer discomfort with “check engine” light problem, and as a result, insist on increasing levels of reliability in their cars. Hence, reliability of the wiring harness has become a very important automotive design characteristic. On one hand, the more secure an engine mounting system is, the more stable the engine wiring harness is. In order to enhance their durability, car manufacturers need to perform many validation tests during the development phase which involves a lot of time and cost. In this study, a newly developed lab-simulation test is proposed to qualify the design of engine mounting and engine wiring early in the design cycle and reduce time and expense. The lab-simulation test has contributed to a significant cost and time reduction and has shown good correlation to the original proving ground test.

To predict structure-borne interior noise using CAE simulation, it is important to establish a model for both the noise and vibration transfer path, as well as the excitation source. In the passenger vehicle, powertrain and road induced loads are major input sources for NVH. This paper describes a process to simulate the structure-borne road noise to 150Hz. A measured road surface is used for input for the simulation. Road surface data, in the form of height vs. distance, is converted to enforced motions at the tire patch in the frequency domain for input to the vehicle system model. The input loads are validated by the comparison of wheel hub excursions. The ability of the CAE simulation model to predict interior acoustic responses is shown by the comparison of the simulation results with measured vehicle interior responses.

With its advantage on the economic and environmental reason the preference of vehicles with diesel engine is growing in the domestic market as well as European market. And automobile makers are enthusiastic in the development of diesel engine vehicles with more comfortable interior atmosphere in order to meet consumers' requirements. Generally, when compared with gasoline engine, diesel engine has much bigger vibratory input to the mounting structure and produces higher level in interior noise and body vibration. In this paper, the improvement of NVH quality at the idle state of an SUV car with DI diesel engine has been achieved through tuning engine mounts based on TPA (Transfer Path Analysis) for low frequency vibration and interior booming noise.

One of the ways to improve the fuel efficiency of the HEV (Hybrid and Electric Vehicles) is to optimize automotive electric system. In order to achieve this, the LDC (Low voltage DC-DC Converter) variable voltage was controlled. Using the ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System) map, the charge-discharge behaviors of 12V lead-acid battery was predicted during driving so that, the battery could be charged efficiently. In this study, the feedback control system for 12V battery discharging was designed to compromise between the 12V battery SOC (State of Charge) and the driving conditions at different traffic points. In contrast to earlier approaches, this experimental result indicates that the LDC variable voltage control based on ADAS is able to reduce the LDC average output power by 17.1% therefore, increasing fuel efficiency and ensuring the durability of the 12V battery.

This paper presents a novel method predicting the variation of sound quality of interior noise depending on the change of the proprieties of absorption materials. At the first, the model predicting the interior noise corresponding to the change of the absorption material in engine room is proposed. Secondly the index to estimate the sound quality of the predicted sound is developed. Thirdly the experimental work has been conducted with seven different materials and validated the newly developed index. Finally, this index is applied for the optimization of absorption material to improve the sound quality of interior noise in a passenger car.

The engine indicated torque is not delivered entirely to the wheels, because it is lowered by losses, such as the pumping, mechanical friction and front auxiliary power consumption. The front auxiliary belt drive system is a big power consumer-fueling and operating the various accessory devices, such as air conditioning compressor, electric alternator, and power steering pump. The standard fuel economy test does not consider the auxiliary driving torque when it is activated during the actual driving condition and it is considered a five-cycle correction factor only. Therefore, research on improving the front end auxiliary drive (FEAD) system is still relevant in the immediate future, particularly regarding the air conditioning compressor and the electric alternator. An exertion to minimize the auxiliary loss is much smaller than the sustained effort required to reduce engine friction loss.

Hyundai Kia Motors started developing the under-floor of YF sonata, the base platform for mid-to-large size sedans, in order to reduce weight and improve body performance. For local dynamic rigidity, there are design improvement and additional support structures at suspension mounting area. The strength at the joint where longitudinal and transverse members meet is increased to improve the overall body stiffness, and also the riding comfort and handling. Impact performance and safety is also improved by straightening the major structural members and strengthening the joint areas, efficiently absorbing and inducing the impact energy through load paths. As the body of a vehicle is the constitution of numerous parts, increased strength at the joints and major structural members with more linear profiles have played crucial roles in the improvement in overall body performance.

The success of improved fuel economy is the proper integration of thermal management components which are appropriately performed to reduce friction and wasted energy. The thermal management systems of vehicle are able to balance the multiple needs such as heating, cooling, or appropriate operation within specified temperature ranges of propulsion systems. Since the propulsion systems of vehicle have changed from a single energy source based on conventional internal combustion engine to hybrid system including more electrical system such as full type of hybrid electric vehicle or plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, a new transition associated with vehicle thermal management arises. More efficient thermal management systems are required to improve the fuel economy in the hybrid electric vehicles because of the driving of electric traction motor and the increase of engine off time. The decrease of engine operation time may not sustain the proper temperature ranges of engine and gearbox.