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Achieving comfortable Ingress-Egress (I/E) is a major ergonomic challenge for Occupant packaging engineers during vehicle design. Vehicles should be designed so that the targeted drivers are able to comfortably get in and out of it. Simulating occupant ingress/egress motion for vehicle involves many constraints and capturing actual behavior of human motion is cumbersome. In recent years, there are number of studies to investigate occupant ingress/egress motion and to understand perceived discomfort, influence of specific design parameters, age impact etc. These studies majorly used techniques like real time motion capturing in a vehicle mockup, comparison of joint torques developed during the ingress/egress motions etc., to identify the occupants discomfort aspects. This paper aims to capture the ingress/egress influencing parameters and incorporating the parameters in vehicle architecture layout during concept phase itself considering various anthropometric measurements.

Material selection is based on Process such as forging, die-casting, machining, welding and injection moulding and application as type of load for Knife Edges and Pivots, to minimize Thermal Distortion, for Safe Pressure Vessels, Stiff, High Damping Materials, etc. In order for gears to achieve their intended performance, durability and reliability, the selection of a suitable gear material is very important. High load capacity requires a tough, hard material that is difficult to machine; whereas high precision favors materials that are easy to machine and therefore have lower strength and hardness ratings. Gears are made of variety of materials depending on the requirement of the machine. They are made of plastic, steel, wood, cast iron, aluminum, brass, powdered metal, magnetic alloys and many others. The gear designer and user face a myriad of choices. The final selection should be based upon an understanding of material properties and application requirements.

Virtual assessment of an occupant postural ergonomics has become an essential part of vehicle development process. To design vehicle for different market is one of the primary reason for manufacturers using digital tools to address the specific needs of the target market including cultural background, road and traffic conditions. RAMSIS is a widely used software for creating digital human models (DHM) of different target population which allows manufacturers to assess design with unique customer requirements in product design. Defining these requirements with RAMSIS human module helped development team to accurately define occupant targets such as occupant space, visibility and reachability etc. Occupant behavior and usage scenario are factors which are unique to target market and they influence the occupant posture and usage pattern inside the vehicle. This paper defines the methodology towards the development of Indian Digital Simulation model for vehicle ergonomic evaluations.

In automotive industry, design of vehicle to end customer with proper ergonomics and balancing the design is always a challenge, for which an accurate prediction of postures are needed. Several studies have used Digital Human Models (DHM) to examine specific movements related to ingress and egress by translating complex tasks, like vehicle egress through DHMs. This requires an in-depth analysis of users to ensure such models reflect the range of abilities inherent to the population. Designers are increasingly using digital mock-ups of the built environment using DHMs as a means to reduce costs and speed-up the “time-to-market” of products. DHMs can help to improve the ergonomics of a product but must be representative of actual users.

Traffic awareness of the driver is one of the prime focus in terms of pedestrian and road safety. Driver experience plays a significant role and driving requires careful attention to changing environments both within and outside the vehicle. Any lapse in driver attention from the primary task of driving could potentially lead to an accident. It is observed that, lack of attention on the ongoing traffic and ignorant about the traffic information such as traffic lights, road signs, traffic rules and regulations are major cause for the vehicle crash. Traffic signals & signage are the most appropriate choice of traffic control for the intersection, it is important to ensure that driver can see the information far away from the intersection so that he/she can stop safely upon viewing the yellow and red display. Then, upon viewing the signal operations and conditions the motorist can stop his/her vehicle successfully before entering the intersection.

Plenum is the part located between the front windshield and the bonnet of an automobile . It is primarily used as an air inlet to the HVAC during fresh air mode operation. It’s secondary functions include water drainage, aesthetic cover to hide the gap between windshield to bonnet, concealing wiper motors and mechanisms etc. The plenum consists mainly two sub parts viz. upper plenum and lower plenum. Conventional plenum design which is found in majority of global OEMs employ a plastic upper plenum and a metal lower plenum which spans across the entire width of engine compartment. This conventional lower plenum is bulky, consumes more packaging space and has more weight. In this paper, we propose a novel design for the plenum lower to overcome above mentioned limitations of the conventional design. This novel design employs a dry and wet box concept for its working and is made up of complete plastic material.

Airbags play a vital role in occupant protection during a crash event. Apart from the crash test the airbags have to additionally meet the requirements of the ECE R 12 headform impact test with Driver's Airbag (DAB) located in the steering wheel being deployed and the ECE R21 headform impact test for Passenger Airbag (PAB) in undeployed condition. Improper location of the PAB module below the Instrument Panel, the design of the air bag housing and the Instrument Panel are some of the factors that could lead to non compliance of the components of the uninflated PAB. The paper deals with the investigation conducted for compliance of the PAB to ECE R 21 with the uninflated air bag in meeting the requirements of 80 g at 19.3 km/h by proper location, changes to the design of the PAB cover, air bag housing brackets, etc.

Automotive steel wheel is a critical component for human safety. For validating steel wheel various tests will be performed at component and vehicle level. Cornering test performed at vehicle level is one of the tests, where wheel will be validated for high cornering loads. Cornering test performed at vehicle level consists of three different events i.e., rotations of vehicle in track1, rotations of vehicle track 2 and rotations of vehicle in track3. As wheel will experience different loading in each of the events of cornering test, correlating the virtual Finite Element Analysis (FEA) with physical test is quite challenging. If in FEA we can predict the damage and life very near to the physical validation, we can create a safe wheel for high cornering loads without any test concerns. Vent hole shape and Hat depth are two important aspects in wheel disc design. Vent hole shape and size will influence the heat dissipation of braking.

In developing countries, the commercial vehicle industry is one of the key drivers for economic growth. The commercial vehicle industry in India is expected to reach 11,80,000 units by 2025 with a CAGR of 18% from CY 2020 to CY 2025 [1]. In the price sensitive segment of small commercial vehicles, it is imperative to incorporate accurate fuel economy measurement techniques during product development stage to deliver maximum value to the customer. In this approach, measuring the fuel consumption of small commercial vehicles in real world driving conditions in real time is one of the most critical aspects in engine calibration development and fine tuning. One of the challenges in measuring fuel consumption in sub 1 liter diesel engines is the very low fuel flow rate in the fuel feed line which keeps varying as per the driver demand.

In-vehicle displays such as an instrument cluster in a vehicle provide vital information to the user. The information in terms of displays and tell-tales needs to be perceived by the user with minimal glance during driving. Drivers must recognize the condition of the vehicle and the state of its surroundings through primarily visual means. Drivers then process this in the brain, draw on their memory to identify problem situations, decide on a plan of action and execute it in order to avoid an accident. There are visual hindrances seen in real world scenario such as obscuration, reflection and glare on the instrument cluster which prevents the vital information flow from vehicle to the driver. In order to ensure safety while driving, the instrument cluster or driver displays should be placed in an optimized location. This paper deals with how to achieve a visual hindrance free cluster position in a vehicle to protect the important information flow from the vehicle to the driver.

In current scenario importance of fuel efficient vehicles, lesser emissions & energy efficiency are the major considerations for any vehicle manufacturer. To meet these expectations vehicle manufacturer are exploring alternate powertrains to reduce emissions and produce better fuel efficient vehicles. For any vehicle manufacturer component cost, weight and package volume are the major driving factors for success. This is even true for latest upcoming hybrid and electric vehicles as well. To gain advantage and introduce products faster, OEMs are inclined to electrify their existing platforms to compete with other manufacturers. To convert existing vehicles into hybrid vehicles, all the major components like e machine, High voltage battery, power electronics etc. needs to be carefully packaged along with existing components in the same package space.

With continuous pressure for reducing vehicle development time and cost, without compromising on system reliability, it is imperative to move from Road to Lab to Model (RLM) based development. Every OEM is currently using virtual environment to complete functional checks of systems during development. The method of developing control functions and calibration in virtual environment brings repeatability and reproducibility which typically is challenging in real world testing. This process is cost effective and optimizes the time for development and brings high level of system maturity before testing it in the vehicle. This paper focuses on defining a front-loading approach for setting up of virtual test environment. Development of virtual test environment and its validation with respect to real vehicle data will be discussed, with focus on vehicle plant model and driver model.

OEMs these days are focusing on front loading the activities to Virtual Test Environment (VTE) based development owing to high development cost and complexity in achieving repeatability during testing phase of vehicle development,. This process not only helps in reducing the cost and time but also helps in increasing the maturity and confidence level of the developed system before actual prototype is built. In the past, extensive research has happened for increasing the fidelity of VTE by improving plant model efficacy which involves powertrain and other vehicle systems. On the other hand, improving the precision of driver model which is one of the most complex nonlinear systems of virtual environment still remains a challenge. It is apparent that various drivers show different behavior in real world for a given drive profile. While modelling a driver for a VTE, the real world driver attributes are seldom considered.

Wheel rim is one of the most critical safety parts in a vehicle. Strength in cornering loading is one of the most important durability test requirements for automotive steel wheel rim apart from other loading conditions like vertical and impact loads. Based on the category of vehicle and customer usage pattern, the accelerated cornering test is derived for testing steel wheel rims. The simulation and certification of steel wheel rim for the required dynamic durability testing requirement involves many steps ranging from acceptance criteria derivation to reliably addressing known potential failure zones in steel wheel rims. Nave radius and crown are sensitive to cornering loads, given the pitch circle diameter at the concept stage, the known effects of these key parameters are determined from DOE and used as reliable indicators to arrive at the shape and section of the steel wheel rim.

Regenerative braking is an effective approach for electric vehicles (EVs) to extend their driving range. To enhance the braking performances and regenerative energy, regenerative braking control strategy based on multi objective optimization is explained in this paper. This technical paper would be focusing on extracting optimum Range with effective brake performances without affecting drivability and performances in different drives modes. An extensive research study on public road driving patterns is done to understand the percentage utilization of brakes at various (low-mid-high) speeds as per the customer driving behavior. Multi-Objective optimization function with three vital factors is defined where output generated power, torque smoothness and current smoothness are selected as optimization objective to improve the driving range, braking comfort, and battery lifetime respectively.

Commercial transportation is the key pillar of any growing economy. Light and Small commercial vehicles are increasing every day to cater the logistics demand, but there is always a gap between customer’s actual and desired operational efficiency. This is because of lack of organized fleet and efficient fleet operation. The major requirement of fleet owners is timely delivery, high productivity, downtime reduction, real time tracking, etc., Automakers are now providing fleet management application in modern LCV & SCV to satisfy the fleet operator requirement. However, any feature malfunction, consignment mismatch, wrong notification, missed alerts, etc., can incur huge loss to fleet operator and disrupt the entire supply chain. Hence it is very critical to extensively validate the telematics features in fleet management application. This paper explains the approach for exhaustive validation strategy of fleet management applications (B2B) from end user perspective.

A vehicle drifts due to several reasons from its intended straight path even in the case of no steering input. Vehicle pull is a condition where the driver must apply a constant correction torque to the steering wheel to maintain a straight-line course of the vehicle. This paper presents an investigation study into the characteristics of a vehicle experiencing steering drift. The aim of the work is to study vehicle stability and the causes of vehicle drift/pull during straight line to minimize vehicle pull level and hence optimize safety measures. A wobble in the steering wheel feels like the steering wheel is shaking to the left and right. This may get worse, if speed increases. This paper focuses on modelling and evaluating effects of suspension parameters, differential friction, brake drag variation, Unbalanced mass in the wheel assembly and C.G. location of the vehicle under multibody dynamic simulation environment.