Search Results

The adhesion control is the basic technology of active safety for the four-wheel driven EV. In this paper, a novel adhesion control method based on fuzzy logic control is proposed. The control system can maximize the adhesion force without road condition information and vehicle speed signal. Also, the regulation torque to prevent wheel slip is smooth and the vehicle driving comfort is greatly improved. For implementation, only the rotating speed of the driving wheel and the motor driving torque signals are needed, while the derived information of the wheel acceleration and the skid status are used. The simulation and road test results have shown that the adhesion control method is effective for preventing slip and lock on the slippery road condition.

Gas distribution of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) is mainly decided by flow field of bipolar plate. The improper design of distributing channel, nonuniform gas flow distribution and current density distribution among different straight channels are the leading factors that could tremendously undermine the performance and life expectancy of the cell. However, there is lack of research focusing on distributing channel in straight-parallel flow field. In this work, a three-dimensional numerical model of PEMFC cathode flow field is developed with CFD method to investigate the effects of configuration type and width of the distributing channel on pressure distribution in distributing channel and on reactant flow distribution, pressure drop and concentration distribution in multiple straight channel. Effects of electrochemical reaction and formation of water on the flow distribution are taken into consideration.

Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC), which convert the chemical energy into electrical energy directly through electrochemical reactions, are widely considered as one of the best power sources for new energy vehicles (NEV). Some of the major advantages of a PEMFC include high power density, high energy conversion efficiency, minimum pollution, low noise, fast startup and low operating temperature. The Membrane Electrode Assembly (MEA) is one of the core components of fuel cells, which composes catalyst layers (CL) coated proton exchange membrane (PEM) and gas diffusion layers (GDL). The performance of MEA is closely related to mass transportation and the rate of electrochemical reaction. The MEA plays a key role not only in the performance of the PEMFCs, but also for the reducing the cost of the fuel cells, as well as accelerating the commercial applications. Commercialized large-size MEA directly plays a major role in determining fuel cell stack and vehicle performance.

Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) uses hydrogen and oxygen for fuel, the whole energy conversion process almost has no negative impact on the environment. The PEM fuel cell stack with the advantages of low-operating temperature, high current density and fast start-up ability is considered to be the next generation of new electric vehicle power. However, due to the limited current output, it is difficult for a single cell to meet the practical application requirements. The actual fuel cell stack is formed by many single cells assembled together. The assembly process is often related to load transfer, material transfer, energy exchange, multi-phase flow, electrochemical reaction and other factors. The performance of MEA (Membrane Electrode Assembly), sealing gaskets and other components will change during the assembly process, which makes the fuel cell stack assembly process more complex.

Crashworthiness is one of the most important performances of vehicles, and the front rails are the main crash energy absorption parts during the frontal crashing process. In this paper, the front rail was simplified to a thin-walled beam with a cross section of single-hat which was made of steel and aluminum. And the two boards of it were connected by riveting without rivets. In order to optimize its crashworthiness, the thickness (t), radius (R) and the rivet spacing (d) were selected as three design variables, and its specific energy absorption was the objective while the average impact force was the constraint. Considering the error of manufacturing and measurements, the parameters σs and Et of the steel were selected as the uncertainty variables to improve the design reliability. The algorithm IP-GA and the approximate model-RBF (Radial Basis Function) were applied in this nonlinear uncertainty optimization.

Startup from subzero temperature is one of the major challenges for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) to realize commercialization. Below the freezing point (0°C), water will freeze easily, which blocks the reactant gases into the reaction sites, thus leading to the start failure and material degradation. Therefore, for PEMFC in vehicle application, finding suitable ways to reach successful startup from subfreezing environment is a prerequisite. As it’s difficult and complex for experimental studies to measure the internal quantities, mathematical models are the effective ways to study the detailed transport process and physical phenomenon, which make it possible to achieve detailed prediction of the inner life of the cell. However, review papers only on cold start numerical models are not available. In this study, an extensive review on cold start models is summarized featuring the states and phase changes of water, heat and mass transfer.

With the rapidly developing automotive industry and stricter environmental protection laws and regulations, lightweight materials, advanced manufacturing processes and structural optimization methods are widely used in body design. Therefore, in order to evaluate and improve the pedestrian protection during a collision, this paper presents an impact simulation modeling and structural optimization method for a sport utility vehicle engine hood made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP). Head injury criterion (HIC) was used to evaluate the performance of the hood in this regard. The inner panel and the outer panel of CFRP hood were discretized by shell elements in LS_DYNA. The Mat54-55 card was used to define the mechanical properties of the CFRP hood. In order to reduce the computational costs, just the parts contacted with the hood were modeled. The simulations were done in the prescribed 30 impact points.

Gradient based topology optimization method is difficult used to optimization of crashworthiness structures due to the expensive computational cost of sensitivity analysis and complex nonlinear behaviors (geometric nonlinearity, material nonlinearity and contact nonlinearity) of structures during a collision. Equivalent static loads (ESLs) method is one of the methods for nonlinear dynamic response optimization. However, this method ignores the material nonlinearity. Thus this paper proposes an improved topology optimization method for crashworthiness structure based on a modified ESLs method. A new calculation of ESLs considering material nonlinearity is proposed. The improved ESLs method is employed to transform the nonlinear dynamic response optimization into a nonlinear static response optimization with multiple load cases. Each element in the design domain is assigned with a design variable.

The proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) system has emerged as the state-of-art power source for the electric vehicle, but the widespread commercial application of fuel cell vehicle is restricted by its short service life. An enabling high accuracy model holds the key for better understanding, simulation, analysis, subsystem control of the fuel cell system to extract full power and prolong the lifespan. In this paper, a quasi-dynamic lumped parameters model for a 3kW stack is introduced, which includes filling-and-emptying volume sub-models for the relationships between periphery signals and internal states, static water transferring sub-model for the membrane, and empirical electrochemical sub-model for the voltage response. Several dynamic experiments are carried out to identify unknown parameters of the model.

Fuel cell vehicles (FCV) have become a promising transportation tool because of their high efficiency, fast response and zero-emission. However, the cold start problem is one of the main obstacles to limit the further commercialization of FCV in cold weather countries. Many efforts have made to improve the cold start ability. This review presents comprehensive heating methods and influence factors of the research progress in solving the Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC) system cold start problems with more than 100 patents, papers and reports, which may do some help for PEMFC system cold start from the point of practical utilization. Firstly, recent achievements and goals will be summarized in the introduction part. Then, regarding the heating strategies for the PEMFC system cold start, different heating solutions are classified into self-heating strategies and auxiliary-heating heating depending on their heating sources providing approach.

Tracking vehicle trajectories is essential for autonomous vehicles and advanced driver-assistance systems to understand traffic environment and evaluate collision risk. In order to reduce the position deviation and fluctuation of tracking on-road vehicle by millimeter-wave radar (MMWR), an interactive multi-model Kalman filter (IMM-KF) tracking algorithm including data association and track management is proposed. In general, it is difficult to model the target vehicle accurately due to lack of vehicle kinematics parameters, like wheel base, uncertainty of driving behavior and limitation of sensor’s field of view. To handle the uncertainty problem, an interacting multiple model (IMM) approach using Kalman filters is employed to estimate multitarget’s states. Then the compensation of radar ego motion is achieved, since the original measurement is under the radar polar coordinate system.

Water and thermal management is an essential issue that influences performance and durability of a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). Water content in membrane decides its ionic conductivity and membrane swelling favors the ionic conductivity, resulting in decreases in the membrane’s ohmic resistance and improvement in the output voltage. However, if excessive liquid water can’t be removed out of cell quickly, it will fill in the pores of catalyst layer (CL) and gas diffusion layer (GDL) then flooding may occur. It is essential to keep the water content in membrane at a proper level. In this work, a transient isothermal one-dimensional model is developed to investigate effects of the relative humidity of inlet gas and cell temperature on performance of a PEMFC.

Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) system is expected to be the next generation vehicle powertrain. However, water management is still the main problem which directly affects the performance, reliability and durability in PEMFC system. To ensure the accurate water content estimation, High Frequency Resistance (HFR) is the most representative indicator in laboratory. The HFR is calculated by detecting the Alternating Current (AC) voltage response of fuel cell under the excitation of 1k Hz AC current. The voltage level of the AC excitation affects the measurement of HFR. Generally, 5mV AC excitation is used to measure HFR for the fuel cell with an output voltage between 0.6-1V. So, online HFR monitor is a big challenge for vehicle application, due to its low Signal/Noise Ratio (S/N), poor Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) environment, high common mode voltage and several hundred cells. In this work, an online fuel cell HFR monitor controller is developed.

Hot forming process of ultrahigh strength boron steel 22MnB5 is widely applied in vehicle industry. It is one of the most effective approaches for vehicle light weighting. Dynamic recovery is the major softening mechanism of the boron steel under austenite state at elevated temperatures. Deformation mechanism of the boron steel can be revealed by investigation on the behavior of dynamic recovery, which could also improve the accuracy of forming simulations for hot stamping. Uniaxial tensile experiments of the boron steel are carried out on the thermo-mechanical simulator Gleeble3800 at elevated temperatures. The true stress-strain curves and the relations between the work hardening rate and flow stress are obtained in different deformation conditions. The work hardening rate decreases linearly with increasing the flow stress.

Thin-walled structures have been widely used in automobile body design because of its good lightweight and superior mechanical properties. For the energy-absorbing box of the automobile, it is necessary to consider its working conditions under the axial and oblique impact. In this paper, a novel hierarchical honeycomb is proposed and used as filler for thin-walled structures. Meanwhile, the crashworthiness performances of the conventional honeycomb-filled and the hierarchical honeycomb-filled thin-walled structures under different impact conditions are systematically studied. The results indicate the energy absorption of the hierarchical honeycomb-filled thin-walled structure is higher than that of the conventional honeycomb-filled thin-walled structure, and the impact angle has significant effects on the energy absorption performance of the hierarchical honeycomb-filled structure.

For an electric vehicle driven by four in-wheel motors, the torque of each wheel can be controlled precisely and independently. A closed-loop control method of differential drive assisted steering (DDAS) has been proposed to improve vehicle steering properties based on those advantages. With consideration of acceleration requirement, a three dimensional characteristic curve that indicates the relation between torque and angle of the steering wheel at different vehicle speeds was designed as a basis of the control system. In order to deal with the saturation of motor's output torque under certain conditions, an anti-windup PI control algorithm was designed. Simulations and vehicle tests, including pivot steering test, lemniscate test and central steering test were carried out to verify the performance of the DDAS in steering portability and road feeling.

It is very important to investigate how road irregularity excitation will affect the durability, reliability, and performance degradation of fuel cell vehicle powertrain and its key components, including the electric motor, power control unit, power battery package and fuel cell engine system. There are very few published literatures in this research area. In this paper, an elementary but integrated experimental work is described, including the real road load sample on proving ground, road load reproduction on vibration test rig, total vehicle road simulation test and key components vibration tests. Remote parameter control technology is adopted to reproduce the real road load on road simulator and six-degree-of-freedom vibration table, which is used respectively for total vehicle and components vibration tests.

A computational study was conducted in order to characterize the heat transfers in a sedan vehicle underbody and the exhaust system. A steady-state analysis with consideration for both the radiation and conjugate heat transfers was undertaken using the High-Reynolds formulation of the k-epsilon turbulence model with standard wall function and the DO model for the radiation heat transfer. All three mechanisms of heat transfer, i.e., convection, conduction, and radiation, were included in the analysis. The convective heat transfer due to turbulent fluid motion was modeled with the assumption of constant turbulent Prandtl number; and heat conduction was solved directly for both fluid and solid.

Real-time interaction between a driver and the simulator is problematic. In this study, the racing car driving simulator has been established, which is composed of the following functional components: Motion Controller, Simview, Scenario Editor, Application Programmer Interface (APIs) and Crash Simulation. With TCP/IP protocol, the Motion Controller receives driver's manipulation, road unevenness and crash situation of Simview, then generates motion streams that reflecting the current conditions, and sends them to Simview and to the hydraulic platform. Furthermore, by detecting and analyzing general vehicle two-dimensional impact, a kind of complete and applicable calculation method has been established, and complicated vehicle impacts can be analyzed accurately. This racecar driving simulator places a racing driver in a interactive environment, and provides the driver with high-fidelity motion, visual, auditory, and force feedback cues.

The radar-based advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) like autonomous emergency braking (AEB) and forward collision warning (FCW) can reduce accidents, so as to make vehicles, drivers and pedestrians safer. For active safety, automotive millimeter-wave radar is an indispensable role in the automotive environmental sensing system since it can work effectively regardless of the bad weather while the camera fails. One crucial task of the automotive radar is to detect and distinguish some objects close to each other precisely with the increasingly complex of the road condition. Nowadays almost all the automotive radar products work in bidimensional area where just the range and azimuth can be measured. However, sometimes in their field of view it is not easy for them to differentiate some objects, like the car, the manhole covers and the guide board, when they align with each other in vertical direction.