Search Results

Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) use electric energy from the grid rather than fuel energy for most short trips, therefore drastically reducing fuel consumption. Different configurations can be used for PHEVs. In this study, the parallel pre-transmission, series, and power-split configurations were compared by using global optimization. The latter allows a fair comparison among different powertrains. Each vehicle was operated optimally to ensure that the results would not be biased by non-optimally tuned or designed controllers. All vehicles were sized to have a similar all-electric range (AER), performance, and towing capacity. Several driving cycles and distances were used. The advantages of each powertrain are discussed.

A zero-dimensional heat release model was developed for compression ignition engines. This type of model can be utilized for parametric studies, off-line optimization to reduce experimental efforts as well as model-based control strategies. In this particular case, the combustion model, in a simpler form, will be used in future efforts to control the combustion in compression ignition engines operating on gasoline-like fuels. To allow for a realistic representation of the in-cylinder combustion process, a spray model has been employed to allow for the quantification of fuel distribution as well as turbulent kinetic energy within the injection spray. The combustion model framework is capable of reflecting premixed as well as mixing controlled combustion. Fuel is assigned to various combustion events based on the air-fuel mixture within the spray.

Gasoline compression ignition shows great potential in reducing NOx and soot emissions with competitive thermal efficiency by leveraging the properties of gasoline fuels and the high compression ratio of compression ignition engines operating air-dilute. Meanwhile, its control becomes challenging due to not only the properties of different gasoline-type fuels but also the impacts of injection strategies on the in-cylinder reactivity. As such, a computationally efficient zero-dimension combustion model can significantly reduce the cost of control development. In this study, a previously developed zero-dimension combustion model for gasoline compression ignition was extended to multiple gasoline-type fuel blends and a port fuel injection/direct fuel injection strategy. Tests were conducted on a 12.4-liter heavy-duty engine with five fuel blends.

The salient features of modern gasoline direct injection include cavitation, flash boiling, and plume/plume interaction, depending on the operating conditions. These complex phenomena make the prediction of the spray behavior particularly difficult. The present investigation combines mass-based experimental diagnostics with an advanced, in-house modeling capability in order to provide a multi-faceted study of the Engine Combustion Network’s Spray G injector. First, x-ray tomography is used to distinguish the actual injector geometry from the nominal geometry used in past works. The actual geometry is used as the basis of multidimensional CFD simulations which are compared to x-ray radiography measurements for validation under cold conditions. The influence of nozzle diameter and corner radius are of particular interest. Next, the model is used to simulate flash-boiling conditions, in order to understand how the cold flow behavior corresponds to flashing performance.

The sparking behavior in an internal combustion engine affects the fuel efficiency, engine-out emissions, and general drivability of a vehicle. As emissions regulations become progressively stringent, combustion strategies, including exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), lean-burn, and turbocharging are receiving increasing attention as models of higher efficiency advanced combustion engines with reduced emissions levels. Because these new strategies affect the working environment of the spark plug, ongoing research strives to understand the influence of external factors on the spark ignition process. Due to the short time and length scales involved and the harsh environment, experimental quantification of the deposited energy from the sparking event is difficult to obtain. In this paper, we present the results of x-ray radiography measurements of spark ignition plasma generated by a conventional spark plug.

The potential peaking of world conventional oil production and the possible imperative to reduce carbon emissions will put great pressure on vehicle manufacturers to produce more efficient vehicles, on vehicle buyers to seek them out in the marketplace, and on energy suppliers to develop new fuels and delivery systems. Four cases for stabilizing or reducing light vehicle fuel use, oil use, and/or carbon emissions over the next 50 years are presented. Case 1 - Improve mpg so that the fuel use in 2020 is stabilized for the next 30 years. Case 2 - Improve mpg so that by 2030 the fuel use is reduced to the 2000 level and is reduced further in subsequent years. Case 3 - Case 1 plus 50% ethanol use and 50% low-carbon fuel cell vehicles by 2050. Case 4 - Case 2 plus 50% ethanol use and 50% low-carbon fuel cell vehicles by 2050. The mpg targets for new cars and light trucks require that significant advances be made in developing cost-effective and very efficient vehicle technologies.

Dimethyl ether (DME) is an alternative to diesel fuel for use in compression-ignition engines with modified fuel systems and offers potential advantages of efficiency improvements and emission reductions. DME can be produced from natural gas (NG) or from renewable feedstocks such as landfill gas (LFG) or renewable natural gas from manure waste streams (MANR) or any other biomass. This study investigates the well-to-wheels (WTW) energy use and emissions of five DME production pathways as compared with those of petroleum gasoline and diesel using the Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Transportation (GREET®) model developed at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL).

Gasoline Compression Ignition (GCI) engines using a low octane gasoline-like fuel (LOF) have good potential to achieve lower NOx and lower particulate matter emissions with higher fuel efficiency compared to the modern diesel compression ignition (CI) engines. In this work, we conduct a well-to-wheels (WTW) analysis of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy use of the potential LOF GCI vehicle technology. A detailed linear programming (LP) model of the US Petroleum Administration for Defense District Region (PADD) III refinery system - which produces more than 50% of the US refined products - is modified to simulate the production of the LOF in petroleum refineries and provide product-specific energy efficiencies. Results show that the introduction of the LOF production in refineries reduces the throughput of the catalytic reforming unit and thus increases the refinery profit margins.

Fuel cell vehicles are currently undergoing extensive research and development because of their potential for high efficiency and low emissions. A complete well-to-wheels evaluation is helpful when considering the introduction of advanced vehicles that could use a new fuel, such as hydrogen. Several modeling tools developed by Argonne National Laboratory were used to evaluate the impact of several new vehicle configurations. A transient vehicle simulation software code, PSAT (Powertrain System Analysis Toolkit), was used with a transient fuel cell model derived from GCTool (General Computational Toolkit); and GREET (Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions and Energy use in Transportation) was employed in estimating well-to-tank performances. This paper compares the well-to-wheels impacts of several advanced SUVs, including conventional, parallel and series hybrid-electric and fuel cell vehicles.

Weld lines occur when melt flow fronts meet during the injection molding of plastic parts. It is important to investigate the weld line because the weld line area can induce potential failure of structural application. In this paper, a weld line factor (W-L factor) was adopted to describe the strength reduction to the ultimate strength due to the appearance of weld line. There were two engineering thermoplastics involved in this study, including one neat PP and one of talc filled PP plastics. The experimental design was used to investigate four main injection molding parameters (melt temperature, mold temperature, injection speed and packing pressure). Both the tensile bar samples with/without weld lines were molded at each process settings. The sample strength was obtained by the tensile tests under two levels of testing speed (5mm/min and 200mm/min) and testing temperatures (room temperature and -30°C). The results showed that different materials had various values of W-L factor.

Identifying weight reduction ideas is not difficult in the engineering world today. The difficulty is implementation! Typically Product System Teams generate long lists of weight reduction roadmap ideas, but never have time to deliver. Engineers today are too busy to run dual path programs. ‘Roadmap’ ideas sit on an opportunities list until they are “out of time” and then “fall off” the list. This paper will describe a Weight Reduction Workshop process implemented at Ford Motor Company which drives weight reduction ideas into program assumptions early in the definition of a product program. The weight reduction workshop results are: Weight Reduction Ideas Recommended Variable Cost & Investment Estimates Weight savings Cost per pound of weight saved Technical confidence Work plan for each recommended idea Ideas are also evaluated against all the program's sub-attribute requirements to insure the design functions of the component are not compromised.

Recent applied mathematics research on the properties of the invertible shift-invariant discrete wavelet transform has produced new ways to visualize, separate, and synthesize impulsive sounds, such as thuds, slaps, taps, knocks, and rattles. These new methods can be used to examine the joint time-frequency characteristics of a sound, to select individual components based on their time-frequency localization, to quantify the components, and to synthesize new sounds from the selected components. The new tools will be presented in a non-mathematical way illustrated by two real-life sound quality problems, extracting the impulsive components of a windshield wiper sound, and analyzing a door closing-induced rattle.

Scalograms based on shift-invariant orthonormal wavelet transforms can be used to analyze impulsive and transient sounds in the presence of more stationary sound backgrounds, such as wind noise or drivetrain noise. The visual threshold of detection for impulsive features on the scalogram (signal energy content vs. time and frequency,) is shown to be similar to the audible threshold of detection of the human auditory system for the corresponding impulsive sounds. Two examples of impulsive sounds in a realistic automotive sound background are presented: automotive interior rattle in a vehicle passenger compartment, and spark knock recorded in an engine compartment.

This paper proposes a film dynamics model for liquid film resulting from fuel spray impinging on a wall surface. It is based on a thin film assumption and uses numerical particles to represent the film to be compatible with the particle spray models developed previously. The Lagrangian method is adopted to govern the transport of the film particles. A new, statistical treatment was introduced of the momentum exchange between the impinging spray and the wall film to account for the directional distribution of the impinging momentum. This model together with the previously published models for outgoing droplets constitutes a complete description of the spray wall impingement dynamics. For model validation, films resulting from impinging sprays on a flat surface with different impingement angles were calculated and the results were compared with the corresponding experimental measurements.

Under various real-world scenarios, vehicles can become disabled and require towing. OEMs allow a few options for vehicle wrecker towing that include wheel lift tow using a stinger or towing on a flatbed. These methods entail multiple loading events that need to be assessed for damage to the towed vehicle. OEMs have several testing and evaluation methods in place for those scenarios with majority requiring physical vehicle prototypes. Recent focus to reduce product development time and cost has replaced the need for prototype testing with analytical verification methods. In this paper, the CAE method involving multibody dynamic simulation (MBDS) as well as finite element analysis (FEA) of vehicle flatbed operation, winching onto a flatbed, and stinger-pull towing are discussed.

Exhaust temperature models are widely used in the automotive industry to estimate catalyst and exhaust gas temperatures and to protect the catalyst and other vehicle hardware against over-temperature conditions. Modeled exhaust temperatures rely on air, fuel, and spark measurements to make their estimate. Errors in any of these measurements can have a large impact on the accuracy of the model. Furthermore, air-fuel imbalances, air leaks, engine coolant temperature (ECT) or air charge temperature (ACT) inaccuracies, or any unforeseen source of heat entering the exhaust may have a large impact on the accuracy of the modeled estimate. Modern universal exhaust gas oxygen (UEGO) sensors have heaters with controllers to precisely regulate the oxygen sensing element temperature. These controllers are duty cycle based and supply more or less current to the heating element depending on the temperature of the surrounding exhaust gas.

Metal cutting/machining is a widely used manufacturing process for producing high-precision parts at a low cost and with high throughput. In the automotive industry, engine components such as cylinder heads or engine blocks are all manufactured using such processes. Despite its cost benefits, manufacturers often face the problem of machining chips and cutting oil residue remaining on the finished surface or falling into the internal cavities after machining operations, and these wastes can be very difficult to clean. While part cleaning/washing equipment suppliers often claim that their washers have superior performance, determining the washing efficiency is challenging without means to visualize the water flow. In this paper, a virtual engineering methodology using particle-based CFD is developed to address the issue of metal chip cleanliness resulting from engine component machining operations. This methodology comprises two simulation methods.

High gas prices combined with demand for improved fuel economy have prompted increased interest in diesel engine applications for both light-duty and heavy-duty vehicles. The development of aftertreatment systems for these vehicles requires significant investments of capital and time. A reliable and robust qualification testing procedure will allow for more rapid development with lower associated costs. Qualification testing for DPFs has its basis in methods similar to DOCs but also incorporates a PM loading method and regeneration testing of loaded samples. This paper examines the effects of accelerated loading using a PM generator and compares PM generator loaded DPFs to engine dynamometer loaded samples. DPFs were evaluated based on pressure drop and regeneration performance for samples loaded slowly and for samples loaded under accelerated conditions. A regeneration reactor was designed and built to help evaluate the DPFs loaded using the PM generator and an engine dynamometer.

The increasing use of aluminum in the design of Body In White (BIW) structures created the need to develop and verify repair methodologies specific to this substrate. Over the past century, steel has been used as the primary material in the production of automotive BIW systems. While repair methods and techniques in steel have been evolving for decades, aluminum structural repair requires special attention for such common practices as welding, mechanical fastening, and the use of adhesives. This paper outlines some of the advanced verification and testing methodologies used to develop collision repair procedures for the aluminum 2003 Jaguar XJ sedan. It includes the identification of potential failure modes found in production and customer applications, the formulation of testing methodologies, CAE verification testing and component subsystem prove-out. The objective of the testing was to develop repair methodologies that meet or exceed production system performance characteristics.

With the increasing number of cars on the street, the exchange of information between those cars becomes essential to improve the driving skills of each driver, resulting in a safer, intelligent and more dynamic traffic. The task now is to make it accessible for everyone. One possible and cheap way to solve this issue is to seek possibilities on free technologies within market trends. Using the smartphone platforms, which holds a high level of embedded technologies, becoming a global communication device even to interpersonal and to social networks, and AppLink Development Kit for smartphones and vehicles integration, this paper will cover aspects about the integration of the kit to an database application based on the cloud, enabling real-time interaction between two cars. Making possible to a driver have access to information and current status of other cars to aid ones life on heavy traffic.