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A fractional recirculation of cabin air was proposed and studied to improve cabin air quality by reducing cabin particle concentrations. Vehicle tests were run with differing number of passengers (1, 2, 3, and 4), four fan speed settings and at 20, 40, and 70 mph. A manual control was installed for the recirculation flap door so different ratios of fresh air to recirculated air could be used. Full recirculation is the most efficient setting in terms of thermal management and particle concentration reduction, but this causes elevated CO₂ levels in the cabin. The study demonstrated cabin CO₂ concentrations could be controlled below a target level of 2000 ppm at various driving conditions and fan speeds with more than 85% of recirculation. The proposed fractional air recirculation method is a simple yet innovative way of improving cabin air quality. Some energy saving is also expected, especially with the air conditioning system.

This paper summarizes the validation of prototype vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) safety applications based on Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) in the United States under a cooperative agreement between the Crash Avoidance Metrics Partners LLC (CAMP) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). After consideration of a number of V2I safety applications, Red Light Violation Warning (RLVW), Curve Speed Warning (CSW) and Reduced Speed Zone Warning with Lane Closure Warning (RSZW/LC) were developed, validated and demonstrated using seven different vehicles (six passenger vehicles and one Class 8 truck) leveraging DSRC-based messages from a Road Side Unit (RSU). The developed V2I safety applications were validated for more than 20 distinct scenarios and over 100 test runs using both light- and heavy-duty vehicles over a period of seven months. Subsequently, additional on-road testing of CSW on public roads and RSZW/LC in live work zones were conducted in Southeast Michigan.

In order to align with net-zero CO2 ambitions, automotive OEMs have been developing increasingly sophisticated strategies to minimise the impact that combustion engines have on the environment. Intelligent thermal management systems to actively control coolant flow around the engine have a positive impact on friction generated in the power cylinder by improving the warmup rate of cylinder liners and heads. This increase in temperature results in an improved frictional performance and cycle averaged fuel consumption, but also increases the piston to liner clearances due to rapid warm up of the upper part of the cylinder head. These increased clearances can introduce piston slap noise and substantially degrade the NVH quality to unacceptable levels, particularly during warmup after soak at low ambient temperatures. Using analytical techniques, it is possible to model the thermo-structural and NVH response of the power cylinder with different warm up strategies.

This study presents the NVH characteristics of a passenger vehicle with a three-cylinder engine and a Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT) and an optimization procedure to achieve balance between fuel economy and NVH. The goal of this study is to improve fuel economy by extending the lock-up area of the damper clutch at low vehicle speed and to minimize booming noise and body vibration caused by the direct connection of the engine and transmission. Resonance characteristics of the chassis systems and driveline have been studied and optimized by the experiment. NVH behavior of the vehicle body structure is investigated and modifications for refinement of booming and body vibration are proposed by simulation using MSC NASTRAN. Calibration parameters for CVT control are optimized for fuel economy and NVH. As a result, the lock-up clutch area has been extended by 300RPM and the fuel economy has been improved by about 1%, while the NVH characteristics of the vehicle satisfy the targets.

In-cylinder flows such as tumble and swirl have an important role on the engine combustion efficiencies and emission formations. In particular, the tumble flow which is dominant in current high performance gasoline engines has an important effect on the fuel consumptions and exhaust emissions under part load conditions. Therefore, it is important to understand the effect of the tumble ratio on the part load performance and optimize the tumble ratio for better fuel economy and exhaust emissions. First step in optimizing a tumble flow is to measure a tumble ratio accurately. In this research the tumble ratio was measured, compared, and correlated using three different measurement methods: steady flow rig, 2-Dimensional PIV (Particle Image Velocimetry), and 3-Dimensional PTV (Particle Tracking Velocimetry). Engine dynamometer test was also conducted to find out the effect of the tumble ratio on the part load performance.

The market demands for CO2 reduction and fuel economy have led to a variety of new gear set concepts of automatic transmissions with 4 planetary gear sets and 6 shift elements in recent years. Understanding the relationship between the torque of clutch and brake and gear ratio in the design stage is very important to assess new gear set concepts and to set up the control strategy for enhancing shift quality and to reduce the heat generation of clutch and brake. In this paper, a new systematic approach is used to unify the relationship between torque and gear ratio during the gear shift for all multi-step planetary automatic transmissions. This study describes the unified concept model with a lumped inertia regardless of the specific transmission layout and derives the principal unified relationship equations using torque and energy analysis, which prove that the sum of brake torque is always gear ratio -1 in every in-gear.

Worldwide projections anticipate a fast-growing market share of the battery electric vehicles (BEVs) to meet stringent emissions regulations for global warming and climate change. One of the new challenges of BEVs is the effective and efficient thermal management of the BEV to minimize parasitic power consumption and to maximize driving range. Typically, the total efficiency of BEVs depends on the performance and power consumption of the thermal management system, which is highly affected by several factors, including driving environments (ambient temperature and traffic conditions) and driver's behavior (aggressiveness). Therefore, this paper investigates the influence of these factors on energy consumption by using a comprehensive BEV simulation integrated with a thermal management system model. The vehicle model was validated with experimental data, and a simulation study is performed by using the vehicle model over various traffic scenarios generated from a traffic simulator.

Generally, vehicles do not need power during deceleration. Therefore, the fuel efficiency can be improved by stopping the fuel injection in this period. However, when the fuel cut is activated, NOx is emitted immediately after fuel cut. During the fuel cut period, a large amount of fresh air flows into the catalytic converter installed on a vehicle since there is no combustion. Thus, the catalytic materials are converted into an oxidizing atmosphere. As a result, NOx purification performance of the catalyst deteriorates, and eventually NOx is emitted when combustion restarts. The quantity of NOx in this period is relatively small. However, in case of increasing fuel cuts, emission problem could arise. Therefore, in order to meet the stringent regulation such as LEV III-SULEV20 or 30, the number of fuel cuts need to be limited. The problem is that this strategy leads to a disadvantage of fuel efficiency.

Hyundai's new engine is developed which optimize the cooling efficiency for knocking improvement and friction reduction. The cooling concepts for this purpose are 1) equalizing the temperature among cylinders by flow optimization, 2) cooling the required area intensively, 3) adopting ‘active flow control’ and 4) enlarging fuel economy at high speed range. In order to realize the cooling concept, 1) cross-flow, 2) compact water jacket & exhaust cooling, 3) flow control valve and 4) cylinder head with integrated exhaust manifold are considered. Improvement of knocking and friction reduction by increased cooling water temperature makes fuel efficiency possible. On the other hand, in order to strengthen the cooling around the combustion chamber and to reduce the deviation among the combustion chamber of cylinders, it is required to design the head water jacket shape accordingly.

The friction properties related to squeal noise was analyzed with the development histories and simplified computational method. Firstly, the development histories were investigated especially focusing on the case which the friction materials were modified to improve squeal noise occurrence. Based on the histories, the friction properties of selected friction materials were newly measured using dynamometer. The average friction coefficient levels, torque oscillations, the increment of friction coefficient during full-stop, and etc. were compared with the squeal noise occurrence, and the results showed that increase of friction properties cause production of squeal noise. The result suggested that the size of friction energy was important factors related to triggering the squeal noise. Also, the contact conditions between rotor disc and friction materials were significant factors deciding the noise occurrence.

For making metal touch feeling and lighting simultaneously, selective electroplating is widely applied in button, panel and etc. in interior/exterior parts of automotive. In this paper, new selective electroplating with printing are suggested as an alternative manufacturing process of two shot molding, PC (Polycarbonate) and ABS (Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene). Manufacturing process of selective electroplating with printing is as follows: For preventing to plate metal layer in area of letter or symbol, masking ink is printed on parts, button, panel, etc., with electroplatable PC+ABS. After conventional electroplating process, the part has electroplated metal layer except for the printed area. It had been studied the composition of ink and PC+ABS for obtaining skip plating and light transmittance on printed area.

The current sensor for motor control is one of the main components in inverters for eco-friendly vehicles. Recently, as the higher performance of torque control has become required, the current sensor measurement error and accuracy of motor controls have become more significant. Since the response time of the sensor affects the motor output power, the response delay of the sensor causes measurement errors of the current. Accordingly, the voltage vector changes, and a motor output power deviation occurs. In the case of the large response delay of the sensor, as motor speed increases, then difference between motoring and generating output power becomes larger and larger. This results in the deterioration of power performance in high-speed operation. The deviation of the voltage vector magnitude is the main cause of motor output power deviation and imbalance through the simulation.

A sliding door is one of the car door systems, which is generally applied to the vans. Compared with swing doors, a sliding door gives comfort to the passengers when they get in or out the car. With an increasing number of the family-scale activities, there followed a huge demand on the vans, which caused growing interests in the convenience technology of the sliding door system. A typical sliding door system has negative effects on the vehicle interior package and the operating effort. Since the door should move backward without touching the car body, the trajectory of the center rail should be a curve. The curve-shaped center rail infiltrates not only the passenger shoulder room, but also the opening flange curve, which results in the interior package loss. Moreover, as the passenger pulls the door outside handle along the normal direction of the door outer skin, the curved rail causes the opening effort loss.

Conventional EPS (Electric Power Steering) systems are operated by one type of steering tuning map set by steering test drivers before being released to customers. That is, the steering efforts can't change in many different driving conditions such as road conditions (low mu, high mu and unpaved roads) or some specific driving conditions (sudden stopping, entering into EPS failure modes and full accelerating). Those conditions can't give drivers consistent steering efforts. This paper approached the new concept technology detecting those conditions by using vehicle and EPS sensors such as tire wheel speeds, vehicle speed, steering angle, steering torque, steering speed and so on. After detecting those conditions and judging what the best steering efforts for safe vehicle driving are, EPS systems automatically can be changed with the steering friction level and selection of steering optimized mapping on several conditions.

This paper describes a torque steer reduction process for a front-wheel drive car with a high torque engine at the initial stage of vehicle development. Literature reviews for the reduction process and vehicle integration tradeoffs among chassis components, driveline components, and loading condition are included. Drive shaft angle and its stiffness, differential gear stiffness, and power train mount, and vehicle weight distribution are mainly considered. In addition, wheel alignment data such as kingpin offset, kingpin inclination, camber angle, ride height, and dynamic tire radius are also discussed to solve the torque steer problem. This paper introduces an example solution to improve the torque steer during vehicle development stage. In that case, the vehicle parameters should be considered the factors to achieve many requirements. In spite of that restriction of alteration, the result of improvement became better than that of its competitor.

The worldwide fuel economy compliance level has been tightening, at the same time, LEV-III/Euro-6d/China-6/BS-6 regulations for NMOG and NOx emissions are being introduced or already effective. Therefore, intensive research effort has been conducted in order to improve the fuel efficiency of passenger cars and reduce exhaust emission. In response to these demands, turbocharged gasoline direct injection (TGDI) engine is being introduced for gasoline vehicles in consideration of fuel efficiency improvement, high output and driving performance compared to naturally aspirated (NA) engine. However, due to its larger thermal mass from the turbo hardware in the exhaust, it suffers from the cold-start emission. The main hazardous gases emitted from gasoline vehicles are CO, HC and NOx, and a three-way catalyst (TWC) is installed for the purification of these harmful emissions.

This paper suggests the new mechanism of rear seat reclining that enhances the comfort. This mechanism enables rear seat back to recline backward with cushion moving forward and upward simultaneously, which makes the rear seat more relaxing. Also this mechanism was developed to have many advantages, especially in the aspect of cost, weight and package layout.

Applying BSM (Balance shaft module) is a very common and effective way to reduce the 2nd-order powertrain vibration which is caused by the ill-balanced inertia force due to the oscillating masses inside an engine. However, the adoption of a BSM can also produce undesirable things especially in cost, fuel economy, starting performance, and so on. Therefore, for small vehicles, in which case cost and weight are key factors at the development stage, it is often required to develop competitive NVH performance without the expensive apparatus like a BSM. In this paper, in order to develop interior noise and vibration of a 4-cylinder vehicle without a BSM, we analyzed the contribution of some transfer paths for powertrain vibration, and could reduce interior booming noise by tuning the dynamic characteristic of the engine mount which was one of the largest transfer paths.

The power sliding door system(PSD) is being equipped in the MPV(Multi-Purpose Vehicle/minivans) vehicle for convenience in the door operation. This study will focus on package space optimization for interior design and overall vehicle packaging for the vehicles equipped with PSD. To optimize the package, investigation for PSD's structure need to be done and the examples of other vehicle maker will be investigated and compared. The study that considers performance and package requirements resulted in a unique PSD design. And finally, this study will show the result vehicle in which the optimized mechanism is applied.

3D digital human modeling (DHM) tools for vehicle packaging facilitate ergonomic design and evaluation based on anthropometry, comfort, and force analysis. It is now possible to quickly predict postures and positions for drivers with selected anthropometry based on ergonomics principles. Despite their powerful visual representation technology for human movements and postures, these tools are still questioned with regard to the validity of the output they provide, especially when predictions are made for different populations. Driving postures and positions of two populations (i.e. North Americans and Koreans) were measured in actual and mock-up SUVs to investigate postural differences and evaluate the results provided by a DHM tool. No difference in driving postures was found between different stature groups within the same population. Between the two populations, however, preferred angles differed for three joints (i.e., ankle, thigh, and hip).