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The joint forces and moments applied to the joints in an air suspension system in truck are important input loads for lightweight and fatigue analysis of bushings, air spring brackets, torque arms and trailing arms. In order to derive a reliable solution of joint forces and moments, engineers will generally use Multi Body Dynamics (MBD) simulation software, like ADAMS, which can save time in product development cycle. Taking an air suspension in truck as a study example, a 2-dimensional quasi-static model of an air suspension, whose stiffness of air spring and bushing is nonlinear, is established in ADAMS environment. After that, simulations are performed at the typical and extreme working condition respectively, and the results are compared with another three cases. Case I assumes that the stiffness of air spring is linear but the stiffness of bushings, including torsion and radial stiffness, are nonlinear.

Experimental measurements of tire tread band vibration have provided direct evidence that higher order structural-acoustic modes exist in tires, not just the well-known fundamental acoustical mode. These modes display both circumferential and radial pressure variations within the tire's air cavity. The theory governing these modes has thus been investigated. A brief recapitulation of the previously-presented coupled structural-acoustical model based on a tensioned string approach will be given, and then an improved tire-acoustical model with a ring-like shape will be introduced. In the latter model, the effects of flexural and circumferential stiffness are considered. This improved model accounts for propagating in-plane vibration in addition to the essentially structure-borne flexural wave and the essentially airborne longitudinal wave accounted for in the previous model. The longitudinal structure-borne wave “cuts on” at the tire's circumferential ring frequency.

The generator is an important loaded component of an engine front end accessory drive system (EFEADS). With a huge moment of inertia and a highest running speed, the vibration and noise often occurs in operation, which has an effect on the service life. Thus an overrunning alternator decoupler (OAD) is used in the EFEADS for reducing the vibration of system. In this paper, a model of EFEADS with an OAD is established. The impact of the OAD on the dynamic responses of pulley of generator and the system are analyzed, and is verified by bench experiments. And the influence of parameters, such as spring stiffness, moment of inertia of generator and loaded torque on the dynamic performances of the system are studied. The influence of misalignment in pulleys on the dynamic performance of system is also discussed. The presented method is useful for optimizing the dynamic performance of system, such as the oscillation of tensioner arm and the slip ratio of the belt-generator pulley.

To study the generated axial force (GAF) of the drive shaft system more accurately and effectively, this paper introduces the interval uncertainty into the research focusing on the GAF. Firstly, an interval uncertainty model for calculating the GAF is proposed based on the Chebyshev polynomials and an analytical model of the GAF. The input torque, the articulation angle, the rotation angle of the drive shaft system, the pitch circle radius (PCR) of the tripod joint and the friction coefficient are regarded as interval variables. Secondly, the upper and lower bounds of the proposed GAF model under interval uncertainty parameters are calculated quickly with the vertex method. Then the interval uncertainty optimization of the GAF under uncertainty parameters is performed. The upper bound of the response interval of the GAF is taken as the optimization object.

Conventional hydraulic steering systems keep improving performance and driving comfort by introducing advanced features via mechanical design. The ever increasing mechanical complexity requires the advanced modeling and simulation technology to mitigate the risks in the early stage of the development process. In this paper, we focus on advanced modeling tools environment with an example of a load sensing hydraulic steering system. The complete system architecture is presented. Analytical equations are developed for a priority valve and a steering control unit as the foundation of modeling. The full version of hydraulic steering system model is developed in Dymola platform. In order to capture interaction between steering and vehicle, the co-simulation platform between the hydraulic steering system and vehicle dynamics is established by integrating Dymola, Carsim and Simulink.

Excessive vibration and poor controllability occur in many mobile fluid power applications, with negative consequences as concerns operators' health and comfort as well as machine safety and productivity. This paper addresses the problem of reducing oscillations in fluid power machines presenting a novel control technique of general applicability. Strong nonlinearities of hydraulic systems and the unpredictable operating conditions of the specific application (e.g. uneven ground, varying loads, etc.) are the main challenges to the development of satisfactory general vibration damping methods. The state of the art methods are typically designed as a function of the specific application, and in many cases they introduce energy dissipation and/or system slowdown. This paper contributes to this research by introducing an energy efficient active damping method based on feedback signals from pressure sensors mounted on the flow control valve block.

This paper presents a method for indirect measurement of tire slip angles from chassis acceleration, yaw rate, and steer angle measurements. The chassis is assumed to be rigid so that acceleration data can be integrated to estimate velocities of the front and rear of the vehicle, from which slip angles can be predicted. The difference in front and rear slip angles is indicative of vehicle oversteer/understeer. Understeer data can then be correlated with position on the track to better understand vehicle handling behavior, aiding the tuning process. The technique is presented, and shown to work well with simulated data, even when the data is corrupted with up to 20% noise. Therefore, the inversion process presented here is theoretically sound. However, when the technique is applied to measured data from race cars, it is shown to be inaccurate. One suspected problem is the difficulty of getting accurate yaw rate data.

There has always been, from the very first UAV, a need for providing cost-effective methods of deploying unmanned aircraft systems at high altitudes. Missions for UAVs at high altitudes are used to conduct atmospheric research, perform global mapping missions, collect remote sensing data, and establish long range communications networks. The team of Gevers Aircraft, Technology Management Group, and Purdue University have designed an innovative balloon launched UAV for these near space applications. A UAV (Payload Return Vehicle) with a nested morphing wing was designed in order to meet the challenges of high altitude flight, and long range and endurance without the need for descent rate control with rockets or a feathering mode.

Tuned mass dampers (TMD) are frequently used in vehicles to resolve vibration and interior booming noise issues arising from powertrain's vibration and road excitation. This paper describes a driveshaft NVH case study in which analysis and test were used to solve the NVH problem. A TMD simulation package that utilizes a database of measured elastomeric material propertied. This facilitates the designing of optimized damper systems for a wide variety of vehicle applications. The simulation software takes into account frequency effects on elastomer properties while designing dampers. And the approach has proven to accurately predict performance in vehicles prior to manufacture. Rules of thumb for TMD design are discussed including locations for placement of dampers in automotive structures, determining the needed mass, and measurements and simulations that can greatly improve the success and reducing time-cost for TMD design.

Operation & support costs for military weapon systems accounted for approximately 3/5th of the $500B Department of Defense budget in 2006. In an effort to ensure readiness and decrease these costs for ground vehicle fleets, health monitoring technologies are being developed for Condition-Based Maintenance of individual vehicles within a fleet. Dynamics-based health monitoring is used in this work because vibrations are a passive source of response data, which are global functions of the mechanical loading and properties of the vehicle. A common way of detecting faults in mechanical equipment, such as the suspension and chassis of a ground vehicle, is to compare measured operational vibrations to a reference (or healthy) signature to detect anomalies.

A methodology for modeling elastomeric mounts as nonlinear lumped parameter models is discussed. A key feature of this methodology is that it integrates dynamic test results under different conditions into the model. The first step is to model the mount as a linear model that is simple but reproduces accurately results from dynamic tests under small excitations. Frequency Response Functions (FRF) enables systematic calculation of the parameters for the model. Under more realistic excitation, the mount exhibits non-linearity, which is investigated in the next step. For nonlinear structures, a simple and intuitive method is to use time-domain force-displacement (F-x) curves. Experiments to obtain the F-x curves involve controlling the displacement excitation and measuring the induced forces. From the F-x curves, stiffness and damping parameters are obtained with an optimization technique.

The damping effect that is observed when a fibrous acoustical treatment is applied to a thin metal panel typical of automotive structures has been modeled by using three independent techniques. In the first two methods the fibrous treatment was modeled by using the limp frame formulation proposed by Bolton et al., while the third method makes use of a general poro-elastic model based on the Biot theory. All three methods have been found to provide consistent predictions that are in excellent agreement with one another. An examination of the numerical results shows that the structural damping effect results primarily from the suppression of the nearfield acoustical motion within the fibrous treatment, that motion being closely coupled with the vibration of the base panel. The observed damping effect is similar in magnitude to that provided by constrained layer dampers having the same mass per unit area as the fibrous layer.

One dominant “wind noise” generating mechanism in road vehicles is the interaction between turbulent flows and flexible structures which include side glass windows. In this study, the effects of seal mechanical properties on the sound generated from flow-induced vibration of side glass windows were investigated. The primary goal was to assess the influence of seal support properties on the noise generated from a plate. Two different models to calculate the optimal support stiffness of the seal that minimizes the velocity response are presented. The results show that both the velocity response and the sound radiation are strongly influenced by dissipation of vibration energy at the edges. It is demonstrate that support tuning can yield significant noise and vibration reduction.

Mobile Earth Moving Machinery like Skid-steer loaders have tight turning radius in limited spaces due to a short wheelbase which prevents the use of suspensions in these vehicles. The absence of a suspension system exposes the vehicle to ground vibrations of high magnitude and low frequency. Vibrations reduce operator comfort, productivity and life of components. Along with vibrations, the machine productivity is also hampered by material spillage which is caused by the tilting of the bucket due to the extension of the boom. The first part of the paper focuses on vibration damping. The chassis’ vibrations are reduced by the use of an active suspension element which is the hydraulic boom cylinder which is equivalent to a spring-damper. With this objective, a linear model for the skid steer loader is developed and a state feedback control law is implemented.

Typically, earthmoving machines do not have wheel suspensions. This lack of components often causes uncomfortable driving, and in some cases reduces machine productivity and safety. Several solutions to this problem have been proposed in the last decades, and particularly successful is the passive solution based on the introduction of accumulators in the hydraulic circuit connecting the machine boom. The extra capacitance effect created by the accumulator causes a magnification of the boom oscillations, in such a way that these oscillations counter-react the machine oscillation caused by the driving on uneven ground. This principle of counter-reacting machine oscillations through the boom motion can be achieved also with electro-hydraulic solutions, properly actuating the flow supply to the boom actuators on the basis of a feedback sensors and a proper control strategy.

The trajectory planning and the accurate path tracking are the two key technologies to realize the intelligent driving. The research of the steering wheel angle plays an important role in the path tracking. The purpose of this study is to optimize the steering wheel angle input during the automated lane changing. A dynamic programming approach to trajectory planning is proposed in this study, which is expected to not only achieve a quick reaction to the changing driving environment, but also optimize the balance between vehicle performance and driving efficiency. First of all, the lane changing trajectory is planned based on the positive and negative trapezoidal lateral acceleration method. In addition, the multi-objective optimization function is built which includes such indexes: lateral acceleration, lateral acceleration rate, yaw rate, lane changing time and lane changing distance.

Because the power unit of electric vehicle has large torque, the rubber mount of electric vehicle is fully compressed under the condition of full throttle acceleration. When designing the mount of electric vehicle, the dynamic-to-static stiffness ratio of mount under the case should be as low as possible to improve the vibration isolation rate of the mount. In this paper, a method for calculating the high frequency dynamic characteristics of rubber isolators under different preloads is presented. Firstly, the dynamic characteristics of rubber specimens under various shear pre-strains were tested. The test results show that the dynamic stiffness of specimen decreases at first and then increases with the increase of shear strain. The viscoelastic parameters of rubber in frequency domain under different pre-strain were identified according to the experimental data. Secondly, a finite element modeling method was proposed.

Electromagnetic semi-active hydraulic engine mount (HEM) with double inertia tracks can realize the opening and closing of the inertia tracks through the control of electromagnetic actuator, so as to meet the needs of vibration isolation in different working conditions, but the cost is high. In this paper, without using electromagnetic actuator, a mechanical semi-active HEM with double inertia tracks is designed and manufactured with simple structure and low cost. In this study, the feature of mechanical semi-active HEM with double inertia tracks is that a baffle-current limiting column structure is added in the inertia track. Under different excitation amplitudes, the baffle-current limiting column structure can open and close the inertia track passively. Several mechanical semi-active HEM with double-inertia tracks samples and conventional inertia tracks HEM samples are manufactured and the dynamic characteristics of these samples under low frequency excitation are tested.

Because autonomous vehicles (AVs) equipped with active front steering have the features of time varying, uncertainties, high rate of fault, and high burden on the in-vehicle networks, this article studies the adaptive robust control problem for improving lateral stability in steer-by-wire (SBW) vehicles in the presence of abrupt nonlinear faults. First, an upper-level robust H∞ controller is designed to obtain the desired front-wheel steering angle for driving both the yaw rate and the sideslip angle to reach their correct values. Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy modeling method, which has shown the extraordinary ability in coping with the issue of nonlinear, is applied to deal with the challenge of the changing longitudinal velocity. The output of the upper controller can be calculated by a parallel distributed compensation (PDC) scheme.

The On-line Project Information System (OPIS) is a LAMP-based (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) system being developed at NASA Ames Research Center to improve Agency information transfer and data availability, largely for improvement of system analysis and engineering. The tool will enable users to investigate NASA technology development efforts, connect with experts, and access technology development data. OPIS is currently being developed for NASA's Exploration Life Support (ELS) Project. Within OPIS, NASA ELS Managers assign projects to Principal Investigators (PI), track responsible individuals and institutions, and designate reporting assignments. Each PI populates a “Project Page” with a project overview, team member information, files, citations, and images. PI's may also delegate on-line report viewing and editing privileges to specific team members. Users can browse or search for project and member information.