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To prevent braking recession, heavy commercial vehicles are often equipped with fluid auxiliary braking devices, such as hydraulic retarder. Hydraulic retarder can convert the vehicle’s kinetic energy to the fluid heat energy, which can enormously alleviate the main brake’s workload. The traditional hydraulic retarder can provide enough braking torque but has a delay during the braking. In this paper, a new type of magnetorheological fluid (MR fluid) hydraulic retarder is introduced by replacing the traditional fluid with magnetorheological fluid because of its linear braking torque and quick response. By changing the magnetic field intensity, it is easier to control the braking torque than the traditional hydraulic retarder. The rise of magnetorheological fluid temperature during the braking period will reduce the hydraulic retarder’s performance.

With the continuous increasing requirements of commercial vehicle weight and speed on highway transportation, conventional friction brake is difficult to meet the braking performance. To ensure the driving safety of the vehicle in the hilly region, the eddy current retarder (ECR) has been widely used due to its fast response, lower prices and convenient installation. ECR brakes the vehicle through the electromagnetic force generated by the current, and converted vehicle mechanical energy into heat through magnetic field. Air cooling structure is often used in the traditional ECR and cooling performance is limited, which causes low braking torque, thermal recession, and low reliability and so on. The water jacket has been equipped outside the eddy current region in this study, and the electric ECR is cooled through the water circulating in the circuit, which prolongs its working time.

The hydraulic retarder is an auxiliary braking device generally equipped on commercial vehicles. Its oil temperature change influences the brake performance of hydraulic retarder. The Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) is a good means to recover exhausted heat. Moreover, it can cool oil and stably control oil temperature with the help of heat absorption related with evaporation. Comprehensively considering the heat-producing characteristics of hydraulic retarder and the temperature control demand, the aimed boundary conditions are determined. Also the changing rules about the working medium flow rate are obtained. In this work, the heat-producing properties of hydraulic retarder under different conditions and the oil external circulating performance is firstly analyzed. By researching the system’s adaptation to the limiting conditions, the aimed temperature to control is prescribed.

Using friction brakes for long time can increase easily its temperature and lower vehicle brake performance in the downhill process. The drivers' hysteretic perception to future driving condition could mislead them to stop untimely the engine brake, and some other auxiliary braking devices are designed to increase the brake power for reduction of the friction brake torque. The decompression engine brake has complex structure and high cost, and the application of eddy current retarder or hydraulic retarder on the commercial vehicles is mainly limited to their cost and mass. In this paper, an innovative brake guidance system for commercial vehicles with coordinated friction brakes and engine brake is introduced to guide the drivers to minimize the use of the friction brakes on the downhill with consideration of future driving conditions, which is aimed at releasing the engine brake potential fully and controlling the friction brake temperature in safe range.

Downhill mountain roads are the accident prone sections because of their complexity and variety. Drivers rely more on driving experience and it is very easy to cause traffic accidents due to the negligence or the judgment failure. Traditional active safety systems, such as ABS, having subjecting to the driver's visual feedback, can’t fully guarantee the downhill driving safety in complex terrain environments. To enhance the safety of vehicles in the downhill, this study combines the characteristics of vehicle dynamics and the geographic information. Thus, through which the drivers could obtain the safety speed specified for his/her vehicle in the given downhill terrains and operate in advance to reduce traffic accidents due to driver's judgment failure and avoid the brake overheating and enhance the safety of vehicles in the downhill.

The tank truck has a wide range of application. When the liquid in the tank is not fully loaded, the lateral movement of the liquid in the tank will shift the center of gravity of the tank truck and make the vehicle less safe. It is easy to roll over when the tank truck is turning. This study combines the vehicle dynamic characteristics and geographic information, which gives the driver safe speed and safe braking distance tips before turning, to reduce the traffic accidents caused by driver's misjudgment. The dynamic model of the tank truck is established, through collecting the real-time information of the vehicle, the vehicle load and braking torque are calculated by the relevant dynamic model. The system needs to measure the deviation of the center of gravity in the tank truck movement process, and the deviation of the center of gravity has a great influence on the safety speed.

Mountainous area makes up more than half of the whole land area of China, the road of which is full of ups and downs. Heavy commercial vehicles as the main means of transport in mountainous areas, braking torque recession, even brake failure, often happens because of the overheating in long downhill journey, which seriously threatens the safety of the driving. Therefore, this paper presents an intelligent assistance system based on Geographic Information System and vehicle dynamics. The main brake duration and heat generation can be effectively reduced through adjusting the speed at the slope top, applying the engine auxiliary brake in the initial stage and choosing braking strategy appropriately, in order to prolong the downhill driving distance and improve the safety during continuous braking. This paper characterizes and analyses the road gradients and their effects on braking heat generation.

The hydraulic retarder used in commercial vehicles can provide hydraulic damping to generate braking torque, reducing the pressure of the braking system on the slope section and increasing the safety. In this paper, the magnetorheological fluid with fast magnetic field reflection characteristics is used to increase the response speed of the hydraulic retarder, which can effectively reduce the response time of the hydraulic retarder. In this paper, the influence of the change of circumferential magnetic field on the braking torque of the magnetorheological fluid retarder is studied.

The hydraulic retarder is an important auxiliary braking device for the heavy vehicle, which has some characteristics, such as the big brake torque and long duration braking, when the vehicle is traveling in braking state. However, the transmission power loss will be produced when the vehicle is traveling in non-braking state. This transmission power loss is called Air-friction. Firstly, the air flow distribution characteristics of retarder cavity are studied by computational fluid mechanics, and the Air-friction characteristic in different conditions is analyzed. Then, according to the Air-friction characteristics for the condition of different filling density, a set of vacuum air loss reduction system is designed. Meanwhile, the test bench for retarder Air-friction is set up, the test data of the revolution speed, pressure in cavity and air loss resistance is obtained according to the test bench for hydraulic retarder.