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In the modern automotive sector, durability and reliability are two terms of utmost importance and relevance. The ever improving standards and cut throat competition has led to customers expecting highly reliable products at low costs. Any product that fails within its useful life leads to customer dissatisfaction and affects the OEM’s reputation. To eradicate this, all automotive components undergo stringent validation protocol, either in proving ground or in lab. Multipurpose bracket is one of the most important and critical aggregate in the vehicle assembly. It encompasses various mounting components such as FUPD bracket, steering mounting bracket, front spring front bracket, cab mount bracket, cab tilt cylinder mounting bracket, front cross member, footstep bracket and bumper. All these components experience various degrees of vibration and fatigue during its running period.

In the emerging commercial vehicle sector, it is very essential to give a product to customer, which is very reliable and less prone to the failures to make the product successful in the market. In order to make it possible, the product is to be validated to replicate the exact field conditions, where it is going to be operated. Lab testing plays a vital role in reproducing the field conditions in order to reduce the lead time in overall product life cycle development process. This paper deals with the design and fabrication of the steering column slip endurance test rig. This rig is capable of generating wear on the steering column splines coating which predominantly leads to failure of steering column. The data acquired from Proving Ground (PG) was analyzed and block cycles were generated with help of data analyzing tools.

One of the important methods by which vibrations of a body are reduced is by the use of vibration absorbers or tuned absorbers. This technique involves attaching a spring mass system, called absorber system, to the vibrating body (also called primary body). This paper is a case study dealing with a primary system, here a driver seat, to attenuate its response to disturbance. It has high damped natural frequency compared to the base excitation frequency, which was collected from test data. The paper discusses the variations in absorber and primary system damping ratio, mass ratio variation and usage of variable stiffness. Detailed analysis showed instability in the tuned system due to the large gap between the primary body's damped natural frequency, and the target base excitation frequency. In order to address varying target excitation frequency, an adaptive tuned absorber is suggested.

In competitive vehicle market, the product must be designed and validated in shorter time span without compromising the quality. The durability of the vehicle is tested either by on road trials undertaken at the actual customer supplication sites for large time period or in the accelerated rough surfaces called “Proving ground” to validate in shorter time span. Accelerated proving ground durability testing plays a vital role in enabling shorter product development cycles by simulating the road load influences alone from the actual field conditions. It is imperative to simulate the test vehicle at proving ground (PG) testing such that it replicates the same damage that occurs in the field due to road loads. PG validation requires a specific durability test sequence for every segment of commercial vehicles due to different customer usage applications and terrain conditions. This diversity in applications and terrains induce structural damage at different range of frequencies.

Powertrain is the major source of noise and vibration in commercial vehicles and has significant contribution on both interior and exterior noise levels. It is vital to reduce the radiated noise from powertrain to meet customer expectations of vehicle comfort and to abide by the legislative noise requirements. Sound intensity mapping technique can identify the critical components of noise radiation from the powertrain. Sound intensity mapping has revealed that oil sump as one of the major contributors for radiated noise from powertrain. Accounting the effect of dynamic coupling of oil on the sump is crucial in predicting its noise radiation performance. Through numerical methods, some amount of work done in predicting the dynamic characteristics of structures filled with fluid. This paper discusses on the capability of numerical approach in predicting the oil sump modal characteristics with fluid-structure interaction and consequent verification with experimental modal test results.

Torsional vibration is a characteristic phenomenon of automotive powertrains. It can have an adverse impact on powertrain related noise as well as the durability of transmission and drivetrain components. Hence minimizing torsional vibration levels associated with powertrains has become important. In this context, accurate measurement and representation of angular acceleration is of paramount importance. A methodology was developed for in-house vehicle level torsional vibration measurement, analysis and representation of results. The evaluation of torsional vibration has two major aspects. First, the acquisition of raw rotational data and secondly, the processing of acquired data to arrive at usable information from which inferences and interpretations can be made about the behavior of the rotating element. This paper describes the development process followed for establishing a torsional vibration evaluation methodology.

With a push for urbanization across cities, there is an increased demand for mobility in public transportation especially buses which are provided through state transport undertakings. Hence, the expectations of this class of vehicles will be high in terms of quality and comfort to the passengers. The noise inside the passenger area of the bus becomes an important parameter, which sets apart a bus manufacturer from its competitors. The driveline of the bus is the system responsible for the transfer of power from engine to the wheels. The noise and vibration problems associated with it are detected only in the late stages of the design chain, when all its elements are tested together over a wide range of conditions. Since, calibration of engine and the selection of transmission is freezed in early stages, satisfying power and torque requirements, the only viable option left to address the problem is by optimizing the clutch parameters.

In automobiles, front axle assembly is a main load bearing member and houses steering linkages. Front axle assembly has two main parts namely axle beam and axle arm, interconnected by a kingpin. This kingpin allows the rotation of axle arm during steering events. To avoid metal to metal contact between axle arm and kingpin, bushes are housed on the top and bottom half of the axle arm & in axle beam. Due to radial load and steering rotation, as a weak member, bushes will wear out faster. This affects the proper functioning of steering mechanism. Hence, the bushes need to be evaluated prior to its implementation in vehicle. In general, bushes are evaluated using Pin-On-Disc test as a comparative study, but it does not simulate exact boundary conditions as in vehicle. Next option is vehicle level validation but leads to more testing time and cost. Hence, as an optimized solution, the same vehicle operating conditions can be replicated in component level testing.

Non air-conditioned buses constitute a major portion of public transportation facilities in many countries across the world. Inadequate cabin air circulation is a major cause of passenger discomfort in these buses. The aim of this study is to model the air flow pattern inside the passenger compartment of a bus and to establish the effect of solutions such as roof vents in improving the air circulation. RANS based CFD simulations with Shear Stress Transport (SST) turbulence model have been carried out using a commercial CFD solver. The CFD methodology has been verified by comparing results with experimentally validated LES simulation results available in literature. The vehicle model used in this study was the shell structure of a bus with an overall length of 7 m and a wheel base of 3.9 m. Simulations were carried out for a four vent configuration which showed an increase of 131% in the average in-cabin air velocity over the baseline model without any roof-vents.

Based on customer application and loading condition, each Commercial Vehicle model has an entirely different usage pattern. To perform accurate durability validation, each vehicle model prototype should run on actual customer usage locations and loading conditions for the durability target kilometers. But it is time consuming and not practical. So a statistical approach is followed to generate the accelerated durability test sequence and target on in-house Proving Ground tracks to match the real customer usage for the durability target kilometers. Again a single durability test sequence and target cannot be followed for all vehicle models due to the variability in customer usage. For that, specific durability test sequence and target need to be established for every class of commercial vehicle. This paper summarizes the methodology to develop Durability test sequence and target for commercial vehicle based on the work carried out on variants of medium and heavy duty trucks.

In this work, durability of the bus structure is evaluated with a Virtual Test Model (VTM).Full vehicle Multi Body Dynamics (MBD) model of the bus is built, with inclusion of flexibility of the bus structure to capture structural modes. Component mode synthesis method is used for creation of flexible model for use in MBD. Load extraction is done by performing MBD analysis with measured wheel inputs. Modal Superposition Method (MSM) is employed in FE along with these extracted loads for calculation of modal transient dynamic stress response of the structure. e-N based fatigue life is estimated. The estimated fatigue life from the modal superposition method show good correlation with the physical test results done in 6-poster test rig.

One of the important factors strongly required by customers nowadays is lower noise and vibration in vehicle. In this paper the prime focus is made on the study of effect of driveline angles on the noise and vibration behavior in a 4X4 configuration commercial vehicle. The impact of propeller shaft angles in the transfer of driveline excitations to the transmission and the resulting noise and vibration is studied. An abnormal noise was perceived from transmission and the root cause was investigated for the same. These excitations were high due to the higher driveline angles as this was design requirement to maintain higher ground clearance. A two-stage approach was adopted to modify the effect (transmission) and cause (propeller shaft angle) there by reducing the abnormal noise and vibration perceived in the vehicle.

Every class of commercial vehicle has an entirely different usage pattern based on customer application and needs. To perform accurate durability testing, these prototypes should run on real customer usage locations and loading conditions for the target life. However, this is time consuming and not practical, hence resulting in Proving Ground (PG) testing. It is also known that a standard PG durability cycle cannot be valid for every class of vehicle and every application. So a statistical approach was followed to develop an accelerated durability test cycle based on in-house PG test surfaces in order to match the real customer usage to the durability target life. This paper summarizes the methodology to develop Durability Validation test cycles for commercial vehicle based on the work carried out on a heavy duty tipper and an intermediate commercial vehicle.

Vehicular Emission testing is gaining importance over the past years in the wake of requirements for real driving emissions with implementation of RDE packages across Europe / USA and various developing countries. Extending the same concept for other countries poses slight challenges in terms of geographical and climatic conditions prevailing in the country, where the climatic conditions are differing from Europe / USA. It is a challenge to accept the same boundary conditions as in Europe, at the same time the challenge is to find a threshold number in a more scientific manner. This study concentrates on determination and recommendation of thresholds for ambient temperature and altitude. The basis for temperature threshold would be to determine the percentage of time the temperature exceeded beyond the threshold over year in the country. The basis for Altitude is considered based on the percentage of total length of roads beyond the threshold altitude limit.

A case study was conducted on the design, optimization and material replacement for an automobile suspension link. The link is part of a four bar mechanism. The mechanism was developed in Adams/Car® and multibody simulation was carried out on it. The joint forces arrived from the simulation were exported for finite element analysis of the components in OptiStruct®. Finally, topology and shape optimization was conducted to reduce the weight of the original component. A feasibility study was also carried out to replace the fabricated steel link with a heat treated cast iron link. Heat treated cast iron being lighter than steel, ensures reduction in weight without compromising on strength. The experiment resulted in a feasible optimized shape which was 32% lighter than the current shape of the link being used in the vehicle, while keeping the stresses and displacements within limits.

Lifting axles are auxiliary axles that provide increased load carrying capacity in heavy commercial vehicles. Lift axle gives better fuel efficiency as well as it reduces the operational costs by means of increasing the loading carrying capacity. These axles are raised when the vehicle is in unloaded condition, thus increasing the traction on remaining wheels and reducing the tire wear which in turn lower down the maintenance cost of the vehicle. Lifting height and force requires to lift the whole mechanism and are two main considerable factors to design the lifting axle mechanism. Although in India currently, the use of lift mechanism of single tire with continuous axle is more common. But in the case of pusher axle, continuous axle is unable to lift more after certain height because of the draft angle of the propeller shaft, and single tire axle which has less load carrying capacity up to 6T (Tons).

This abstract work describes a method of data acquisition and validation procedure followed for a metal bumper used in commercial vehicle application. Covariance is considered as major phenomenon for repeatable measurements in proving ground data acquisition and it is to be maintained less than 0.05. In this project covariance of data acquisition is analyzed before physical simulation of acquired data. In addition to that, multiple testing conditions like uni-axial and bi-axial testing were carried out to attain the failure. PG data is used for bi-axial vibration test and conventional constant spectrum signal (CSD signal) is used for uni-axial vibration test. Target duration for uni-axial test (Z direction) was arrived using pseudo damage calculation. Strain gauges were installed in failure locations to compare PG data and rig data as well as to calculate strain life. Failures were simulated in bi-axial vibration test.

In the present scenario, delivering the right product at the right time is very crucial in automotive sector to grab the competitive advantage. In the development stage, validation process devours most of the product development time. This paper focuses on reducing the validation time for damper (shock absorber) variants which is a vital component in commercial vehicle suspension system. New test facility is designed for both performance test and endurance testing of six samples simultaneously. In addition, it provides force trend monitoring during the validation which increases the efficiency of test with an enhanced control system. This new facility is also designed to provide side loading capability for individual dampers in addition to the conventional axial loading. The key parameter during validation is control of damper seal temperature within the range of 70-90°C. A cooling circuit is designed to provide an efficient temperature control by re-circulating cold water.

In the modern automotive sector, durability and reliability are the most common terms. Customers are expecting a highly reliable product but at low cost. Any product that fails within its useful life leads to customer dissatisfaction and affects the reputation of the OEM. To eradicate this, all automotive components undergo stringent validation protocol, either in proving ground or in lab. This paper details on developing an accelerated lab test methodology for steering gearbox bracket using fatigue damage and reliability correlation by simulating field failure. Initially, potential failure causes for steering gearbox bracket were analyzed. Road load data was then acquired at proving ground and customer site to evaluate the cumulative fatigue damage on the steering gearbox bracket. To simulate the field failure, lab test facility was developed, reproducing similar boundary conditions as in vehicle.