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Comfort performance has developed into a central theme of vehicle seating design due to the role of the seat as the interface between the vehicle and the human. These comfort performance requirements exercise considerable influence over the specifications of the polyurethane foam that serves as a primary load-bearing material in the seat assembly. Various test protocols have been established to measure and predict comfort performance for polyurethane foam. One of the most important test methods is the vibration transmissivity test, used to characterize the response of a material to vibration of varying frequency and energy. This test methodology measures the performance of polyurethane foam alone to the performance of a fully assembled seat in a vehicle driven on a road surface. As such, there are a variety of test conditions employed to characterize transmissivity performance.

Due to environmental and legislative concerns, less polluting and more efficient vehicle powertrain systems must be developed. A first step is a simple, low cost system such as the presented Engine Stop-Start (ESS) system. A 1.9 liter four-cylinder spark-ignition engine with a four-speed automatic transmission was modified to enable fuel off-on transitions during decelerations and stops. Additional hardware includes a 7 kW electric motor-generator, a power electronics module with an inverter and a DCDC converter, a 36 Volt nominal battery system, and minor modifications to the transmission. A control scheme was developed which takes advantage of the system's fuel saving potential while minimally affecting driveability. Tests have shown EPA City fuel economy gains of approximately 12-14 percent while maintaining the same emissions classification. The EPA Highway fuel economy was increased by approximately 1 percent.

The design of the newly developed Toyota AZ series 4 cylinder engine has been optimized through both simulations and experiments to improve heat transfer, cooling water flow, vibration noise and other characteristics. The AZ engine was developed to achieve good power performance and significantly reduced vibration noise. The new engine meets the LEV regulations due to the improved combustion and optimized exhaust gas flow. A major reduction in friction has resulted in a significant improvement in fuel economy compared with conventional models. It also pioneered a newly developed resin gear drive balance shaft.

The European Union (EU)-Thematic Network sponsored by DG Research of the European Community analyzed the subject of eco-efficient treatment with respect to plastics in End-of-Life Vehicles (ELV). This paper deals with the shredder residue treatment and use for today and in the future.

Global environmental issues require that new alternatives to R-134a refrigerant be investigated by the automotive air-conditioning (A/C) industry. Test facilities must be able to handle the challenges that these refrigerants pose. One refrigerant currently under investigation is Carbon Dioxide (CO2). The high pressure and toxicity of CO2, require the test facility to institute more stringent guidelines and add equipment to safeguard personnel. The operating characteristics of this refrigerant, and the additional equipment needed for the test A/C system, necessitate more complex automated test data acquisition and control. The addition of an internal heat exchanger in the CO2 A/C system is an example of the changes required. Different thermal characteristics introduced by this refrigerants mean that new measurement devices such as higher-pressure transducers are required. Compatibility between test stand sealing materials, hose assemblies, etc., and the refrigerant must be addressed.

The penetration of rainwater through the heating ventilation and air conditioning system (HVAC) of a vehicle directly affects the provision of thermal comfort within the vehicle passenger compartment. Present vehicle designs restrict considerably the air-management processes due to reduced space and tighter packaging. The motivation for the study is to get an insight into factors affecting the water ingress phenomenon when a stationary vehicle is subjected to water loading such as heavy rain when parked or waiting in a traffic light or when in a car wash. The test programme made use of a compact closed circuit full-scale automotive climatic wind tunnel that is able to simulate wind, rain and road inclination. The tunnel was developed as part of the collaborative research between the Flow Diagnostics Laboratory (FDL) of the University of Nottingham and Visteon Climate Control Systems [1].

The shape and configuration of the air ventilation system determines the ventilation performance while influencing the design and structure of a car. It is therefore necessary to decide the configuration of the air ventilation system in the early stages of design. We tried to analyze the pressure level of the ventilation ducts from the aerodynamics simulation results added to the cowl top which had the ventilation intake duct, and so on. Thus we succeeded in designing a new development process that can be used to predict the ventilation performance in a shorter time without the use of prototypes.

Fulfillment of SULEV standards without catalyst - this is a target engineers at IAV have been working on since the middle of the 1990s. The core of this development is an advanced steam engine with a high performance burner. This burner features extremely low raw pollutant emission. This paper describes new solutions that were found to solve the challenging tasks in the development of such an engine concept.

The desire to increase production and reduce cost while increasing environmental consciousness, is a constant challenge in the thermoplastic olefin (TPO) paint industry. Typically, TPO substrates are painted with an adhesion promoter for durability, and top coats for appearance. Although the adhesion promoter has an important function, the intrinsic value is not significant compared to top coats. A process and material was developed to eliminate conventional adhesion promoter spray application. By incorporating a novel adhesion promoter into the aqueous pretreatment system, many of the stresses of high production volumes, and operating costs were addressed while improving environmental awareness.

The transfer efficiency for painting processes utilizing water-borne materials is low, and the residual paint is disposed of as waste. In this study, we focused on a recycling system to collect and dissolve the paint over-spray in the booth water, and to concentrate and regenerate it by means of an ultra filter (UF). Paint adaptable to the recycling system has been developed by providing compatibility between the high hydrophilicity of liquid paint and the high hydrophobicity of the paint film, in order to ensure the recyclability and the high anti-corrosion performance required of paint on automobile underbody parts. This recycling technology is used in an actual propeller shaft painting process and provides large waste reduction and a decrease in painting cost.

Automotive engineers are challenged with increasing fuel economy in transportation vehicles by reducing weight. Aluminum castings are replacing cast iron components as one way to reduce weight in cars. Many of the aluminum castings produced for automobiles today are made with a sand core to form the internal cavity of the automotive component. Currently, the most popular choice of sand binder system in core making is the phenolic urethane cold-box binder system. This system, however, was not designed for use at aluminum pouring temperatures. The collapsibility of a phenolic urethane cold-box core is not sufficient for expedient shakeout in an aluminum casting. Because of this, many aluminum castings must undergo secondary core removal processes. This reduced shakeout effectiveness limits the designer in the casting geometries available and adds cost to the part.

In a conventional soldering process, solvents, such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), have been necessary to remove the flux-residue after soldering. A new CFC-free fluxless soldering process has been developed to obtain high sealing ability even in a small soldering area. This new process utilizes a reducing atmosphere with an appropriate load and assembly orientation to solder the parts. Under this fluxless condition, it is found that appropriate loading and good solder-wettability of the upper part increase the wettability of the lower part.

The use of cutting fluid in machining operations not only poses a health risk to workers but also creates environmental challenges associated with fluid treatment and disposal. In an effort to minimize these concerns and eliminate the costs associated with cutting fluids, e.g., purchase, maintenance, and treatment, dry machining is increasingly being considered as an alternative. This paper is focused on comparing dry and wet machining approaches from several perspectives, including air quality, product quality, and economics. Both experimental and analytical work is presented. Experiments have been performed to determine the effect cutting fluid has on product quality and aerosol generation in the wet and dry turning of gray cast iron. To compare costs in wet and dry turning, a cost model, which includes cutting fluid-related components, has also been established.

Engineers use phenomenological simulation models to determine engine performance. Using these models, we can predict with reasonable accuracy the heat release rate mechanism inside the engine cylinder, which enables us to obtain a prediction of the pressure history inside the engine cylinder. Using this value and the volume change rate of the combustion chamber, we can then estimate the indicated power output of the engine. However, in order to obtain the brake engine power output we must have an indication for the mechanical losses, a great part of which are friction losses. Up to now various correlations have been proposed that provide the frictional mean effective pressure as a function mainly of engine speed and load. These correlations have been obtained from the processing of experimental data, i.e. experimental values for the indicated and brake power output of engines.

The demands on valve seat inserts are that they should have enhanced wear resistance and machinability using non-environmentally hazardous materials at a reasonably low cost. Research into the possibility of producing a new valve seat insert material which fulfills such demands was therefore made. As a result Hitachi Powdered Metals (HPM) has developed a new material which uses dispersed die steel hard particles in the production of intake valve seat inserts.

For an automobile seat, lateral support is considered to be one of the most essential elements for comfort. This report examines lateral support with two selected seats. Driver's movement while cornering was observed by seat pressure distribution (S.P.D.), and muscle activity was simultaneously recorded in electromyogram (EMG). S.P.D showed larger lateral movement of driver and EMG showed higher muscle activity on a poor lateral support seat than on a good lateral support seat. The higher muscle activity on the poor seat was explained as an effort to compete against the larger lateral movement of the body. Thus, poor lateral support was proved to lead to heavier physical burden.

A recent trend in the auto industry has been an increasing focus on the environment, which demands that product designs be “eco-friendly”. For this it is important to design products that can be easily disassembled or formed of combustible materials. Accordingly, forming parts using a single kind of recyclable material is the most effective way to satisfy the above-described requirement. We therefore took this approach with the development of an air cleaner filter. While a conventional air cleaner filter for an engine is generally composed of three parts, that is, filter medium, sealing material, and frame, we developed a recyclable air cleaner filter formed only of the filter medium. To do so, however, it was critical that both sealability and durability of the filter medium be maintained. In order to achieve this, a thermoplastic non-woven fabric was used to produce the filter.

Test standards for evaluating filters should provide uniform methods for the quantitative performance evaluation. Currently, automotive air induction filters are tested according to the SAE J726 standard. This standard recommends measurement of the gravimetric initial and final efficiencies. Measurement of gravimetric efficiencies provides limited information on filter behavior, since the information about the size of particles penetrating the filter is not included. In addition, the measurement of the initial gravimetric efficiency does not provide sufficient information on the initial stage of filtration. Determination of the efficiency at the initial stage of filtration is critical, since at this stage filters show their lowest efficiency, which can have an adverse effect on engine wear. To overcome this problem and to obtain more knowledge on the initial stage of filtration, the initial gravimetric efficiency was measured at different levels of dust loading.

The purpose of this study is to find the suitable working conditions of a Pressure Wave Supercharger (PWS) that is coupled to a gasoline engine experimentally. The working condition is validated by stationary measurements on an engine dynamometer. To achieve an easier system structure, it was examined to use the engine output for driving of PWS. As a result, it was confirmed that the engine coupled with PWS could be driven by making the ratio of the PWS rotor speed and the engine speed constant.

Low pressure die casting technology (LPDC) has been proven to satisfy the quality standard requirements of safety aluminum suspension parts. The process gives freedom to innovative and lighter design, like tubular hollow sections, through the use of cores. With the goal of having higher quality coupled with competitive production costs, an innovative process has been investigated. The GMBOND™ core making process with a water based bio-polymer binder has been used in the LPDC of heat treatable T5 alloys specifically developed to get the required final component performances. One of the goals of this activity has been to make a comparison between the cold box technology and the GMBOND™.