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Coatings have the potential to improve bearing tribological performance. However, every coating application process and material combination may create different residual stresses and coating microstructures, and their effect on bearing fatigue and wear performance is unclear. The aim of this work is to investigate coating induced residual stress effects on bearing failure indicators using a microstructural contact mechanics (MSCM) finite element (FE) model. The MSCM FE model consists of a two-dimensional FE model of a coated bearing surface under sliding contact where individual grains are represented by FE domains. Interactions between FE domains are represented using contact element pairs. Unique to this layered rolling contact FE model is the use of polycrystalline material models to represent realistic bearing and coating microstructural behavior. The MSCM FE model was compared to a second non-microstructural contact mechanics (non-MSCM) model.

Self-piercing riveting (SPR) has been used in production to join sheet materials since the early 1990s. A large amount of experimental trial work was required in order to determine an appropriate combination of rivet and anvil design to fulfill the required joint parameters. The presented study is describing the methodology of SPR joint design based on numerical simulation and experimental methods of defining required simulation input parameters. The required inputs are the stress-strain curves of sheet materials and rivets for the range of strains taking place in the SPR joining process, parameters required for a fracture model for all involved materials, and friction parameters for all interfaces of SPR process. In the current study, the normalized Cockroft-Latham fracture criterion was used for predicting fracture. Custom hole and tube expansion tests were used for predicting fracture of the riveted materials and the rivet, respectively.

Although the performance of CNC machines is accurate, unavoidable human errors at the part loading position have serious repercussions on engine performance. In the present paper the authors would like to develop an algorithm for error compensation when the tool movement is unrestricted in space. The new solution algorithm will be in terms of the known initial system variables such as the part loading errors, drill tool inclinations, location of spindle etc. This modified paper employs the same principles of inverse kinematics as done in the earlier paper wherein a faulty compound-hole angle axis in space caused by the translational and rotational errors at the part loading position is identified with an imaginary true axis in space by enforcing identity through a modified machine axes taking into effect inclination of the drill tool in space. In the absence of any specific application, this algorithm is verified on Solid Works a commercial CAD tool and found to be correct.

Part II of the paper focuses on fatigue tests of four specific gear steels: SAE 4320, SAE 8822, PS18, and 20MnCr5. Fatigue life, S-N curves are experimentally generated for all steels at low cycle fatigue and high cycle fatigue. The failure stresses at cycle one and slope of the linear portion of S-N curves are determined based on the experimental data. Endurance limits were tested. Uncertainty in the fatigue data is analyzed in details and values of sigma are calculated. Design curves were estimated based on the fatigue test results.

This particular study focuses on four specific gear steels: SAE 4320, SAE 8822, PS18, and 20MnCr5. Notched specimens are manufactured from the four materials. Three point bending experiments were conducted which include ultimate tests and fatigue tests. Part I is on ultimate test only. Part II will concentrate on fatigue testing. In order to see how the carburization affected the fatigue performance of these steels, a residual stress test was performed on one sample of each steel by mean of the incremental hole drilling method. The compressive stresses were found in all four steels with minimum and maximum stress approximately equal. This suggests that the residual stresses are biaxial in the carburized steel case. The difference between the maximum and minimum stresses is within 37% for all steels. The residual stress after the carburization process were found to be highest in the 4320 steel and SAE 8822, followed by PS 18 and then MnCr.

This paper describes a laboratory-based test system and procedure for determining the durability of RTV sealant with fretting movement. A test machine is described in which shear and tensile stress-generating displacements at room temperature and temperature of 100°C are produced to load an RTV seal. The test system utilizes an air pressurized hollow cylinder with a cap sealed by RTV sealant on a reciprocating test rig. An external air leakage monitoring system detects the health of the tested RTV seal. When air leakage occurs, the seal is determined to have failed. RTV sealant used in the test was fully cured at room temperature and then aged with engine oil. In the experiments, a total of 6 displacements were used to generate cycle/amplitude graphs for both shear and tensile modes. Failures were determined to be caused by the loss of adhesion in tensile mode, and by crack nucleation due to the special step design in shear mode.

One-dimensional (1D) engine simulation packages are limited in modeling flows through an adverse pressure gradient where boundary layer separation is more likely to occur, as in the case of the diffuser part of the restrictor. The restrictor modeling difficulty usually manifests itself as an engine model that consumes a lot of effort (both computational and from the user) in the modeling of the restrictor. The approach sought in this work was to provide a flow vs pressure drop dependency to the code such that it does not consume too much effort in the analysis of the restrictor. This approach is similar to that used for the valve flow, where a look up table is typically provided for determining the flow. Experimentally determined flow measurements on a thin-plate orifice, a short restrictor and a long restrictor are presented and discussed. The developed model gave excellent results in an acyclic steady-state simulation and is being integrated in the full engine model.

A new approach has been developed to enhance polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) seal performance. To accomplish this, a fundamental need to improve the flexural capabilities of the PTFE seal was required. The new approach involves incorporating elastomeric portions to the seal in regions of the sealing lip that previously have been all PTFE. This new concept PTFE seal has demonstrated improved performance to present day bonded and clamped PTFE seal technologies in three specific areas of bench testing: Dynamic Torque reduction of 45% to 60%, Dynamic Durability life improvement of 1000+ hours at 15% higher geometry, and Thermal cycling performance improvement of 5-30%.

Automotive parking gears were tempered using three different tempering processes with a motive of determining the best tempering processes in terms of the properties of the heat treated samples. The three tempering processes compared in this study are Induction temper, Furnace temper and Magnetic core-flux temper. Torsion tests, Residual Stress tests and metallurgical analysis were done on the samples that were induction heat-treated and then tempered using one of the above mentioned three tempering processes. The resultant test data was used to draw conclusions on the performance of the tempering processes.

This paper presents the development of surrogate models (metamodels) for evaluating the bearing performance in an internal combustion engine. The metamodels are employed for performing probabilistic analyses for the engine bearings. The metamodels are developed based on results from a simulation solver computed at a limited number of sample points, which sample the design space. An integrated system-level engine simulation model, consisting of a flexible crankshaft dynamics model and a flexible engine block model connected by a detailed hydrodynamic lubrication model, is employed in this paper for generating information necessary to construct the metamodels. An optimal symmetric latin hypercube algorithm is utilized for identifying the sampling points based on the number and the range of the variables that are considered to vary in the design space.

A new concept in thrust washers for gasoline and diesel engines has been developed. Traditionally, thrust washers have been made from the same steel-backed bimetal or trimetal materials that are used for connecting rod bearings and crankshaft main bearings. The new concept is a solid aluminum alloy, specifically formulated for optimum performance as a thrust washer material. This alloy has environmental advantages and performance characteristics superior to currently used materials. The composition, manufacturing process, and microstructure of the new concept thrust washer are briefly explained, and the performance characteristics and environmental advantages are presented.

Bore distortion was measured in a 2.0 liter in-line 4-cylinder gasoline engine, chosen because its siamesed bore design was expected to incur high bore distortion. The method adopted was to install 10 Micro-Epsilon eddy-current transducers in an invar carrier attached to the under crown of the piston. The transducers emerged through apertures in the piston at second ring level where they were in close proximity to the bore surface. A 2-beam linkage system was used to carry miniature co-axial cables to the engine exterior. Measurements were recorded at various speeds and loads up to 6000 rev/min. Maximum bore distortion was 86 microns, arising from clamping loads, thermal effects and combustion pressure. The head bolts spaced around the bore gave rise to fourth order distortion, but the dominant influence was thermal loading which induced second order distortion, attributed directly to the siamesed bore design. The combustion pressure proved to have the least influence.

A fast and accurate journal bearing elastohydrodynamic analysis is presented based on a finite difference formulation. The governing equations for the oil film pressure, stiffness and damping are solved using a finite difference approach. The oil film domain is discretized using a rectangular two-dimensional finite difference mesh. In this new formulation, it is not necessary to generate a global fluidity matrix similar to a finite element based solution. The finite difference equations are solved using a successive over relaxation (SOR) algorithm. The concept of “Influence Zone,” for computing the dynamic characteristics is introduced. The SOR algorithm and the “Influence Zone” concept significantly improve the computational efficiency without loss of accuracy. The new algorithms are validated with numerical results from the literature and their numerical efficiency is demonstrated.

A comprehensive formulation is presented for the dynamics of a rotating flexible crankshaft coupled with the dynamics of an engine block through a finite difference elastohydrodynamic main bearing lubrication algorithm. The coupling is based on detailed equilibrium conditions at the bearings. The component mode synthesis is employed for modeling the crankshaft and block dynamic behavior. A specialized algorithm for coupling the rigid and flexible body dynamics of the crankshaft within the framework of the component mode synthesis has been developed. A finite difference lubrication algorithm is used for computing the oil film elastohydrodynamic characteristics. A computationally accurate and efficient mapping algorithm has been developed for transferring information between a high - density computational grid for the elastohydrodynamic bearing solver and a low - density structural grid utilized in computing the crankshaft and block structural dynamic response.

This paper presents the development of surrogate models (metamodels) for evaluating the bearing performance in an internal combustion engine without performing time consuming analyses. The metamodels are developed based on results from actual simulation solvers computed at a limited number of sample points, which sample the design space. A finite difference bearing solver is employed in this paper for generating information necessary to construct the metamodels. An optimal symmetric Latin hypercube algorithm is utilized for identifying the sampling points based on the number and the range of the variables that are considered to vary in the design space. The development of the metamodels is validated by comparing results from the metamodels with results from the actual bearing performance solver over a large number of evaluation points. Once the metamodels are established they are employed for performing probabilistic analyses.

Robert Bosch GmBH proposed in 2012 a new version of communication protocol named as Controller area network with Flexible Data-Rate (CANFD), that supports data frames up to 64 bytes compared to 8 bytes of CAN. With limited data frame size of CAN message, and it is impossible to be encrypted and secured. With this new feature of CAN FD, we propose a hardware design - CAN crypto FPGA chip to secure data transmitted through CAN FD bus by using AES-128 and SHA-1 algorithms with a symmetric key. AES-128 algorithm will provide confidentiality of CAN message and SHA-1 algorithm with a symmetric key (HMAC) will provide integrity and authentication of CAN message. The design has been modeled and verified by using Verilog HDL – a hardware description language, and implemented successfully into Xilinx FPGA chip by using simulation tool ISE (Xilinx).

Frames are important structures found in many transportation applications such as automotive bodies and train cars. They are also widely employed in buildings, bridges, and other load bearing designs. When a frame is carrying multiple loads, it can potentially risk a catastrophic buckling failure. The loads on the frame may be non-proportional in that one force stays constant while the other is increased until buckling occurs. In this study the buckling problem is formulated as a constrained eigenvalue problem (CEVP). As opposed to other CEVP in which the eigenvectors are forced to comply with a number of the constraints, the eigenvalues in the current CEVP are subject to some equality constraints. A numerical algorithm for solving the constrained eigenvalue problem is presented. The algorithm is a simple trapping scheme in which the computation starts with an initial guess and a window containing the potential target for the eigenvalue is identified.

Proper valve angles and concentric valve seats are critical to performance of an engine. If the valve seat were not right, the valve is not going to seat properly resulting in reduced power output. Although the performance of CNC machines is accurate, unavoidable human errors at the part loading position have serious repercussions on engine performance. A solution algorithm presented in this paper employs the principles of inverse kinematics wherein a faulty compound-hole angle axis in space caused by the translational and rotational errors at the part loading position is identified with an imaginary true axis in space by enforcing identity through a modified machine axes.

There is a continual need to apply heat treatment processes in innovative ways to optimize material performance. One such application studied in this research is carburizing followed by austempering of low carbon alloy steels, AISI 8620, AISI 8822 and AISI 4320, to produce components with high strength and toughness. This heat treatment process was applied in two steps; first, carburization of the surface of the parts, second, the samples were quenched from austenitic temperature at a rate fast enough to avoid the formation of ferrite or pearlite and then held at a temperature just above the martensite starting temperature to partially or fully form bainite. Any austenite which was not transformed during austempering, upon further cooling formed martensite or was present as retained austenite.

The engineering of an improved performance PTFE crankshaft (IPPC) seal is a challenge in the pursuit of longer service life and reduced total cost of ownership in the vehicular industry. This paper briefly reviews from the authors’ perspective the evolution of laydown PTFE seal design and details the IPPC seal features along with bench testing performance data.