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The objective of this research is to investigate the effect of the blast load on the vehicle and occupant and identify the sensitivity of the vehicle parameters to the blast load, therefore figure out the design solution to protect the vehicle and occupant. CAE explicit commercial code, LSDYNA, is applied in this research with adopting CONWEP method for the blast load. The LSDYNA 95th percentile Hybrid III dummy model is used for occupant simulation. Seat, seat belt, and underbody and underbody armor are interested areas in the design to meet the survivability and weight target. The results show the protection can be effectively achieved through employing the new design method in three areas mentioned above.

The Ultrasonic Collision Avoidance System is designed to eliminate collisions when cars, trucks, and other vehicles are backing up. Many backup collisions result when objects are not in view or when a driver underestimates the distance to the object. The Ultrasonic Proximity System warns the driver of objects in the path and displays the distance to the object. The distance to an object is represented by a 10 segment light emitting diode (LED) bar graph. If all LED's are off, the object is more than 10 feet away. The first LED will illuminate at approximately 10 feet, and as the vehicle moves closer to the obstruction more LED's illuminate, about 1 LED per foot. If the object is closer than 1′-6″, the last LED will illuminate and an audible alarm will sound.

A model based approach is developed to track and trace multiple incoherent sound sources in 3D space in real time. This technology is capable of handling continuous, random, transient, impulsive, narrowband and broadband sounds over a wide frequency range (20 to 20,000 Hz). The premise of this technology is that the sound field is generated by point sources located in a free field. To locate these sound sources, iterative triangulations are used based on the signals measured by a microphone array. These signals are preprocessed through de-noising techniques to enhance signal to noise ratios (SNR). Unlike the conventional beamforming, the present technology enables one to pinpoint the exact locations of multiple incoherent sound sources simultaneously by using the Cartesian coordinates, including sources behind measurement microphones. In other words, the microphone array need not face a test object, which is required in the beamforming.

Injuries to the thorax and abdomen comprise a significant percentage of all occupant injuries in motor vehicle accidents. While the percentage of internal chest injuries is reduced for restrained front-seat occupants in frontal crashes, serious skeletal chest injuries and abdominal injuries can still result from interaction with steering wheels and restraint systems. This paper describes the design and performance of prototype components for the chest, abdomen, spine, and shoulders of the Hybrid III dummy that are under development to improve the capability of the Hybrid III frontal crash dummy with regard to restraint-system interaction and injury-sensing capability.

There are many mechanisms for ankle injury to front seat occupants involved in automotive impacts. This study addresses injuries to the ankle joint involving inversion or eversion, in particular at high rates of loading such as might occur in automotive accidents. Injuries included unilateral malleolar fractures and ligament tears, and talus and calcaneous avulsions. Twenty tests have been performed so far, two of them using Hybrid III lower leg and the rest using cadaveric specimens. The specimens were loaded dynamically on the bottom of the foot via a pneumatic cylinder in either an inversion or eversion direction at fixed dorsiflexion and plantarflexion angles. The applied force and accelerations have been measured as well as all the reaction forces and moments. High-speed film was used to obtain the inversiordeversion angle of the foot relative to the tibia and for following ligament stretch.

An experimental study was carried out to characterize the spray atomization process of automotive port fuel injectors retrofitted to a novel pressure modulation piezoelectric driver, which generates a pressure perturbation inside the fuel line. Unlike many other piezoelectric atomizers, this unit does not drive the nozzle directly. It has a small size and can be installed easily between regular port injector and fuel lines. There is no extra control difficulty with this system since the fuel injection rate and injection timing are controlled by the original fuel-metering valve. The global spray structures were characterized using the planar laser Mie scattering (PLMS) technique and the spray atomization processes were quantified using phase Doppler anemometry (PDA) technique.

Vibration and noise are generally considered to be the major problems in power transmission chains. This paper presents an adaptive, active control strategy for the reduction of vibration in automotive timing chain drives and examines the effects of the active control on noise reduction. Experimental results show that the average vibration amplitude is diminished by as much as 90% under low to moderate tension conditions, and the chain noise is reduced by about 3 dB. The experimental apparatus has low cost and is readily applicable to an industrial environment.

A humerus provisional reference value (PRV) based on human surrogate data was developed to help evaluate upper arm injury potential. The proposed PRV is based on humerus bone bending moments generated by testing pairs of cadaver arms to fracture in three-point bending on an Instron testing machine in either lateral-medial (L-M) or anterior-posterior (A-P) loading, at 218 mm/s and 0.635 mm/s loading rates. The results were then normalized and scaled to 50th and 5th percentile sized occupants. The normalized average L-M bending moment at failure test result was 6 percent more than the normalized average A-P bending moment. The normalized average L-M shear force at failure was 23 percent higher than the normalized average A-P shear force. The faster rate of loading resulted in a higher average bending moment overall - 8 percent in the L-M and 14 percent in the A-P loading directions.

A semi-empirical formula [1] for predicting noise spectra of an engine cooling fan assembly is developed. In deriving this formulation it is assumed that sound radiation from an axial flow fan is primarily due to fluctuating forces exerted on the fan blade surface. These fluctuating forces are correlated to the total lift force exerted on the fan blade, and is approximated by pressure pulses that decay both in space and time. The radiated acoustic pressure is then expressed in terms of superposition of contributions from these pressure pulses, and the corresponding line spectrum is obtained by taking a Fourier series expansion. To simulate the broad band sounds, a normal distribution-like shape function is designed which divides the frequency into consecutive bands centered at the blade passage frequency and its harmonics. The amplitude of this shape function at the center frequency is unity but decays exponentially. The decay rate decreases with an increase in the number of bands.

Drivers' eye location data was collected in three vehicle (Vega, 1973 Buick, and Chevrolet Van) and in three environments (laboratory buck, static and on-the-road) for each vehicle type. In each environment data was collected for 50 subjects who were stratified by height and sex. A specially constructed remote coordinate system in connection with T.V. cameras was used for data collection. Drivers' eye locations were found to vary as a function of vehicle type. For the Buick and Van there were differences between data collected in the laboratory buck and on-the-road. There were no differences in data collected in the static environment and on-the-road for any vehicle type.

Numerical analyses of head and neck response during side impact are presented in this paper. A mathematical human model for side impact simulation was developed based on previous studies of other researchers. The effects of muscular activities during severe side impact were analyzed with the use of this model. This study shows that the effect of muscular activities is significant especially if the occupant is prepared to resist the impact. This result suggests that the modeling of muscles is important for the simulation of real accident situation.

Rattling in the inevitable clearances between engaging teeth of mechanical power transmission components, such as gears, gear couplings and clutches, etc., is becoming a more and more important issue, especially for automotive applications. An extensive research effort in this area is mostly dedicated to modeling of complex nonlinear processes that develop after the tooth separation occurs, or to experimental studies of these processes. The available abatement techniques for the rattling noise are expensive while not providing desirable noise reduction results. The paper presents a criterial condition for opening of clearances derived for a simplified model and clearly showing importance of various design parameters on possibility of commencement of the rattling process. Also, a novel rattling noise abatement technique is described, based on incorporating simple means for prolongation of the impact interactions between the co-impacting engaging teeth.

Seventeen Heidelberg type cadaveric side impact sled tests, two sled-to-sled tests, and forty-four pendulum tests have been conducted at Wayne State University, to determine human responses and tolerances in lateral collisions. This paper describes the development of a simplified finite element model of a human occupant in a side impact configuration to simulate those cadaveric experiments. The twelve ribs were modeled by shell elements. The visceral contents were modeled as an elastic solid accompanied by an array of discrete dampers. Bone condition factors were obtained after autopsy to provide material properties for the model. The major parameters used for comparison are contact forces at the level of shoulder, thorax, abdomen and pelvis, lateral accelerations of ribs 4 and 8 and of T12, thoracic compression and injury functions V*C, TTI and ASA.