Search Results

Cooled exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) is widely used in diesel engines to control engine-out NOx (oxides of nitrogen) emissions. A portion of the exhaust gases is re-circulated into the intake manifold of the engine after cooling it through a heat exchanger. EGR cooler heat exchangers, however, tend to lose efficiency and have increased pressure drop as deposit forms on the heat exchanger surface due to transport of soot particles and condensing species to the cooler walls. In this study, condensation of water vapor and hydrocarbons at the exit of the EGR cooler was visualized using a fiberscope coupled to a camera equipped with a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) color sensor. A multi-cylinder diesel engine was used to produce a range of engine-out hydrocarbon concentrations. Both surface and bulk gas condensation were observed with the visualization setup over a range of EGR cooler coolant temperatures.

The USDOT and the Crash Avoidance Metrics Partnership-Vehicle Safety Communications 2 (CAMP-VSC2) Consortium (Ford, GM, Honda, Mercedes, and Toyota) initiated, in December 2006, a three-year collaborative effort in the area of wireless-based safety applications under the Vehicle Safety Communications-Applications (VSC-A) Project. The VSC-A Project developed and tested communications-based vehicle safety systems to determine if Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) at 5.9 GHz, in combination with vehicle positioning, would improve upon autonomous vehicle-based safety systems and/or enable new communications-based safety applications.

The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) and the Crash Avoidance Metrics Partnership-Vehicle Safety Communications 2 (CAMP-VSC2) Consortium (Ford, General Motors, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, and Toyota) initiated, in December 2006, a three-year collaborative effort in the area of wireless-based safety applications under the Vehicle Safety Communications-Applications (VSC-A) Project. The VSC-A Project developed and tested Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communications-based safety systems to determine if Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) at 5.9 GHz, in combination with vehicle positioning, would improve upon autonomous vehicle-based safety systems and/or enable new communications-based safety applications.

Digital human models (DHM) are now widely used to assess worker tasks as part of manufacturing simulation. With current DHM software, the simulation engineer or ergonomist usually makes a manual estimate of the likely worker standing location with respect to the work task. In a small number of cases, the worker standing location is determined through physical testing with one or a few workers. Motion capture technology is sometimes used to aid in quantitative analysis of the resulting posture. Previous research has demonstrated the sensitivity of work task assessment using DHM to the accuracy of the posture prediction. This paper expands on that work by demonstrating the need for a method and model to accurately predict worker standing location. The effect of standing location on work task posture and the resulting assessment is documented through three case studies using the Siemens Jack DHM software.

In recent years, there has been a sustained effort by the automotive OEMs and suppliers to improve the vehicle driveline efficiency. This has been in response to customer demands for greater vehicle fuel economy and increasingly stringent government regulations. The automotive rear axle is one of the major sources of power loss in the driveline, and hence represents an area where power loss improvements can have a significant impact on overall vehicle fuel economy. Both the friction induced mechanical losses and the spin losses vary significantly with the operating temperature of the lubricant. Also, the preloads in the bearings can vary due to temperature fluctuations. The temperatures of the lubricant, the gear tooth contacting surfaces, and the bearing contact surfaces are critical to the overall axle performance in terms of power losses, fatigue life, and wear.

Vehicle manufacturers have developed new vehicle and diesel engine technologies compatible with B6-B20 biodiesel blends meeting ASTM D7467, “Standard Specification for Diesel Fuel Oil, Biodiesel Blend (B6 to B20).” However, recent U.S. market place fuel surveys have shown that many retail biodiesel samples are out of specification. A vehicle designed to use biodiesel blends is likely to encounter occasional use of poor quality biodiesel fuel; and therefore understanding the effects of bad marketplace biodiesel fuels on engine and fuel system performance is critical to develop durable automotive technologies. The results presented herein are from vehicle evaluation studies with both on-specification and off-specification bio-based fuels. These studies focused on the performance of fuel injection equipment, engine, engine oil, emissions and emissions system durability.

General Motors and the Takata Corporation have worked together to bring to production a new, industry first technology called the Front Center Airbag which is being implemented on General Motors' 2013 Midsize Crossover Vehicles. This paper reviews field data, describes the hardware, and presents occupant test data to demonstrate in-position performance in far side impacts. The Front Center Airbag is an airbag that mounts to the inboard side of the driver front seat. It has a tubular cushion structure, and it deploys between the front seating positions in far side impacts, near side impacts and rollovers, with the cushion positioning itself adjacent the driver occupant's head and torso. This paper includes pictures of the technology along with a basic description of the design. In-position occupant performance is also described and illustrated with several examples. Single occupant and two front occupant far side impact test data are included, both with and without the airbag present.

Diesel engines have the potential to significantly increase vehicle fuel economy and decrease CO₂ emissions; however, efficient removal of NOx and particulate matter from the engine exhaust is required to meet stringent emission standards. A conventional diesel aftertreatment system consists of a Diesel Oxidation Catalyst (DOC), a urea-based Selective Catalyst Reduction (SCR) catalyst and a diesel particulate filter (DPF), and is widely used to meet the most recent NOx (nitrogen oxides comprising NO and NO₂) and particulate matter (PM) emission standards for medium- and heavy-duty sport utility and truck vehicles. The increasingly stringent emission targets have recently pushed this system layout towards an increase in size of the components and consequently higher system cost. An emerging technology developed recently involves placing the SCR catalyst onto the conventional wall-flow filter.

In this paper, a finite element methodology is given in which finite element models of a three-weld Al-Cu plate is created with support and loading conditions emulating those seen in an optical lab. Harmonic response is sought for the models under the presumption that various defective welds are present. The numerical results are carefully examined to determine the guideline frequency range so the actual optical experiment can be carried out more efficiently.

This paper reports on a study that examines the effect of shoulder belt load limiters and pretensioners as well as crash and occupant factors that influence upper torso harm in real-world frontal crashes. Cases from the University of Michigan International Center for Automotive Medicine (ICAM) database were analyzed. Additional information was used from other databases including the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the National Automotive Sampling System - Crashworthiness Data System (NASS-CDS), and patient data available from the University of Michigan Trauma Center. The ICAM database is comprised of information from real-world crashes in which occupants were seriously injured and required treatment at a Level 1 Trauma Center.

This study concerns the generation of response surfaces for kinematics and injury prediction in pedestrian impact simulations using human body model. A 1000-case DOE (Design of Experiments) study with a Latin Hypercube sampling scheme is conducted using a finite element pedestrian human body model and a simplified parametric vehicle front-end model. The Kriging method is taken as the approach to construct global approximations to system behavior based on results calculated at various points in the design space. Using the response surface models, human lower limb kinematics and injuries, including impact posture, lateral bending angle, ligament elongation and bone fractures, can be quickly assessed when either the structural dimensions or the structural behavior of the vehicle front-end design change. This will aid in vehicle front-end design to enhance protection of pedestrian lower limbs.

Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications are gaining increasing importance in automotive research and engineering domains. The novel communication scheme is targeted to improve driver safety (e.g., forward collision warnings) and comfort (e.g., routing to avoid congestion, automatic toll collection, etc.). Features exploiting these communication schemes are still in the early stages of research and development. However, growing attention to system wide infrastructure - in terms of OEM collaboration on interface standardization, protocol standardization, and government supported road/wireless infrastructure - will lead to popularity of such features in the future. This paper focuses on evaluating reliability and safety/integrity of data communicated over the wireless channels for early design verification. Analysis of a design can be done based on formal models, simulation, emulation, and testing.

Plug-in electric vehicles are becoming increasingly popular as the U.S. and other nations look for ways to reduce the usage of petroleum fuels and reduce the carbon emission footprint. Though plug-in electric vehicles offer many advantages over conventional vehicles, they also present some unique potential hazards due to the presence of high voltage in the vehicle. Specifically, potential high voltage hazards can occur if the electric vehicle is crashed by another vehicle during its plug-in charging session. High voltage hazards include the possibility of electrical shock and thermal events as a result of electrical arcing that can cause injury or death to persons that operate or work around plug-in electric vehicles. Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ISO 26262), often abbreviated as ASIL, is used by the automotive industry for determining the ranking of safety hazards.

There is a growing interest in using pressure sensors to sense side impacts, where the pressure change inside the door cavity is monitored and used to discriminate trigger and non-trigger incidents. In this paper, a pressure sensor simulation capability for side impact sensing calibration is presented. The ability to use simulations for side impact sensing calibration early in the vehicle program development process could reduce vehicle development cost and time. It could also help in evaluating sensor locations by studying the effects of targeted impact points and contents in the door cavity. There are two modeling methods available in LS-DYNA for predicting pressure change inside a cavity, namely airbag method and fluid structure interaction method. A suite of side impact calibration events of a study vehicle were simulated using these two methods. The simulated door cavity pressure time histories were then extracted to calibrate the side sensing system of the study vehicle.

Experimental work was carried out on a small displacement Euro 5 automotive diesel engine alternatively fuelled with ultra low sulphur diesel (ULSD) and with two blends (30% vol.) of ULSD and of two different fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) obtained from both rapeseed methyl ester (RME) and jatropha methyl ester (JME) in order to evaluate the effects of different fuel compositions on particle number (PN) emissions. Particulate matter (PM) emissions for each fuel were characterized in terms of number and mass size distributions by means of two stage dilutions system coupled with a scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS). Measurements were performed at three different sampling points along the exhaust system: at engine-out, downstream of the diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC) and downstream of the diesel particulate filter (DPF). Thus, it was possible to evaluate both the effects of combustion and after-treatment efficiencies on each of the tested fuels.

This study investigates a novel approach towards boosted HCCI operation, which makes use of all engine system components in order to maximize overall efficiency. Four-cylinder boosted HCCI engines have been modeled employing valve strategies and turbomachines that enable high load operation with significant efficiency benefits. A commercially available engine simulation software, coupled to the University of Michigan HCCI combustion and heat transfer correlations, was used to model the HCCI engines with three different boosting configurations: turbocharging, variable geometry turbocharging and combined supercharging with turbocharging. The valve strategy features switching from low-lift Negative Valve Overlap (NVO) to high-lift Positive Valve Overlap (PVO) at medium loads. The new operating approach indicates that heating of the charge from external compression is more efficient than heating by residual gas retention strategies.

An analysis of the first 35 back-over crashes reported by NHTSA's Special Crash Investigations unit was undertaken with two objectives: (1) to test a hypothesized classification of backing crashes into types, and (2) to characterize scenario-specific conditions that may drive countermeasure development requirements and/or objective test development requirements. Backing crash cases were sorted by type, and then analyzed in terms of key features. Subsequent modeling of these SCI cases was done using an adaptation of the Driving Reliability and Error Analysis Methodology (DREAM) and Cognitive Reliability and Error Analysis Methodology (CREAM) (similar to previous applications, for instance, by Ljung and Sandin to lane departure crashes [10]), which is felt to provide a useful tool for crash avoidance technology development.

The engineering of electric propulsion systems requires time and cost efficient methodologies to determine system characteristics as well as potential component integration issues. A significant part of this analysis is the identification of the electromagnetic fields present in the propulsion system. Understanding of the electromagnetic fields during system operation is a significant design consideration due to the use of components that require large current(s) and high voltage(s) in the proximity of other control system items (such as sensors) that operate with low current(s) and voltage(s). Therefore, it is critical to quantify the electromagnetic fields produced by these components within the design and how they may interact with other system components. Often overlooked (and also extremely important) is an evaluation of how the overall system architecture can generate or react to electromagnetic fields (which may be a direct result of packaging approaches).

In the last few years, the application of downsizing and turbocharging to internal combustion engines has considerably increased due to the proven potential of this technology to increase engine efficiency. Variable geometry turbines have been largely adopted to optimize the exhaust energy recovery over a large operating range. Two-stage turbocharger systems have also been studied as a solution to improve engine low-end torque and efficiency, with the first units currently available on the market. However, the compressor technology is today still based on fixed geometry machines, which are sized to efficiently operate at the maximum air flow and therefore lead to poor efficiency values at low air flow conditions. Furthermore, the surge limits prevents the full capabilities of VGT systems to increase the boosting at low engine speed.

This study documents a method developed for dynamically measuring occupant pocketing during various low-speed rear impact, or “whiplash” sled tests. This dynamic pocketing measurement can then be related to the various test parameters used to establish the performance rating or compliance results. Consumer metric and regulatory tests discussed within this paper as potential applications of this technique include, but are not limited to, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) Low Speed Rear Impact (LSRI) rating, Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 202a, and European New Car Assessment Program (EURO-NCAP) whiplash rating. Example metrics are also described which may be used to assist in establishing the design position of the head restraint and optimize the balance between low-speed rear impact performance and customer comfort.