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The sheet metal joining through spot welding is the most widely used process for automotive body building, where an average vehicle has around 5,000 spot welding points in its structure. In this sense, the spot welding project is critical to the final product performance and it must be done in a way that can assure both quality and durability of the vehicle, already taking into consideration the fact that the spot weld mechanical properties related to fatigue and rupture resistance are much lower when compared to other available welding techniques like MIG welding for example. These properties have a direct impact in the fatigue durability and crashworthiness properties of the vehicle, as a significant part of the structural resistance goes through these spot welds. With this scenario, the correct application of FEA techniques is very important to assure that the projected joints and spot weld disposition meet the product targets in terms of safety and durability.

This paper was prepared in order to supply a complete guide which aims to show the key points of clutch disc, plate and flywheel development, and its release system design for medium and heavy duty vehicles. It will be demonstrated also which is the impact of the potential failures during the whole life of all components involved.

1 During the development of a new clutch disc damping system and after three months of hard work the engineering team got stuck with unsatisfactory system performance (rattle noise), despite the help of a computer simulation software. The only alternative seemed to be using a more expensive damping concept but, besides the fact that there wasn't much development time left, that option would increase part cost by unacceptable US$ 200, plus development cost. The team then decided to try Taguchi's Robust Engineering optimization approach for the first time. In just two weeks the authors got a 4.6 dB gain on the signal-to-noise ratio. That allowed us to keep the initially proposed system, thus avoiding the cost increase. Besides, the authors were able to keep the development schedule on track.

The fuel indicator float inside the fuel tank, also called just float or erroneously, fuel indicator, is in reality a fuel level sender. It is apparently a really simple part, but it consists of a small system constituted of the float itself; the float arm articulated to an axle carrying a moving contact over a resistor; and the resistor inside a housing/flange. Its function is to convert the fuel level measurements inside the tank in suitable information to the instruments in the vehicle instrument panel. Since a few years ago, it has suffered successive changes toward the objective of improving quality, durability, reliability and performance, or even motivated by innovations in the installation environment and correlated systems, such as, emission controls, affecting the tank internal space, and highly corrosive type fuels.

Real-time information, standardized and interacting with radio broadcasting listeners during the time they spend driving their cars, could be extremely interesting and useful whether it offers public concerned information and make feasible the complete application of the system (hardware and software) it is based on. The RDS (Radio Data System) standard, which modulation characteristic is based on the concept its data signals are carried on a subcarrier which is added to the stereo multiplex signal at the stereo encoder, make feasible this benefits with extremely low cost, for the listener and even for the broadcaster. Being applied in Europe for more than 15 years, the RDS offers features that improve the operation of the receiver and take advantage of the architecture available in some vehicles through remote actuation of many parts of the car.

General Motors Corporation has always made every effort so that our end products and processes and configuration of components could help preserve the environment. Along those lines, General Motors do Brasil started to develop a protective coating that is corrosion resistant and environment friendly. At first, this will be used for fasteners. This effort involves dramatic changes in attitude, such as our need to admit that we are responsible for managing resources and keeping our world habitable and healthy for the future generations. This study describes metallic and organometallic coatings with an increased resistance to corrosion associated to temperature, free of such harmful metals as cadmium, nickel, lead, chromium, etc. Also demonstrated here is the significance of the total friction coefficient and its composition, considering the friction coefficients inherent to the fastener threads/heads.

This paper presents the results of a study about the influence of the suspension manufacturing and assembly induced dimensional variation on the vehicle dynamic behavior for a compound crank rear suspension. A selection of representative vehicle dynamics metrics has been considered for this assessment and each individual dimensional variation has been categorized with respect to its overall effects on the selected metrics. By doing this, it is possible to identify the critical points where the dynamic behavior of the vehicle is more sensitive to the resulting dimensional variation, therefore creating a new criteria to define the appropriate tolerance control for the manufacturing and assembly of the related parts.

Changes in the macro economic scenario of Brazil during the latest 10 years resulted on several changes in the auto industry market. One, which affected important requirements of the light duty trucks, regards the migration of customers from passenger car segments to light duty pickups. A considerable portion of these new pick-up customers expects an overall level of comfort, handling, noise and vibration similar to the levels found in passenger cars. One possible conclusion of this trend is that an optimized vehicle system integration is vital to prevent potential issues and to assure the achievement of customer satisfaction. Among several vehicle systems, the Drivetrain integration deserves the major attention. This paper shares lessons learned on the integration of the manual Transmission, external shifter, mountings, propeller shaft, rear axle and suspension with the rest of the vehicle.