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Water Wading refers to the situation where a car is moving through relatively deep water at low speed. The challenges of an automotive Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) is to integrate the functional parts like bumper, bumper grille, engine undercover, intake system etc., to enhance the vehicle quality and performance. One of the challenges in vehicle front end and engine room design is to prevent water entry into the air intake system during wading. If significant amount of water enter the air intake, some of the water could subsequently enter the engine cylinder, which would damage the critical components within the engine beyond repair. In general practice wading tests have been carried out during proto stage of vehicle development program to ensure vehicle performance. However a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method for carrying out water wading calculations early during the development phase offers reduction in development cost and time for a new vehicle.

BIW (Body-in White) is a type of vehicle structure formed by spot welding of different sheet metal components. The BIW structure should be designed to support the maximum load potential under various performance conditions. Thus the structure should have good strength as well as stiffness. Torsion Stiffness of BIW is the amount of torque required to cause a unit degree of twist. It is often considered as a benchmark of its structural competence due to its effect on various parameters like ride, handling, lateral load distribution and NVH performance of vehicle. The paper aims to design and develop a test methodology and test fixtures for measuring the BIW torsion stiffness with repeatability of test results and also have an (R2>0.99) for the measured values in the test.

Front suspension frame is an integral part of automobile chassis which acts as a major load carrying structural member and connects different suspension components with body. It provides the required stiffness for achieving desired vehicle dynamics performance. Acting as a major road load path from tire to body, it also acts as a mounting base for suspension arm, steering and compression rod. Considering the competitive market conditions, increased fuel efficiency demand along with enhanced structural durability, it is important to evaluate suspension frame for stiffness and durability using Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) methodology so as to reduce product development time and First Time Right cost effective design. In this paper focus is given on CAE methodology used to design a light weight tubular kind of suspension frame for light commercial vehicle with stiffness comparable to conventional sheet metal suspension frame and similar durability performance with reduced weight.

With the change in the perspective of the Customers towards safer vehicles, most of the Vehicle manufacturers in India are making their vehicles Crash compliant. According to the accidental data collection, Side crashes are second leading cause of death after Frontal crash. Currently sub system level tests are done for evaluating the side impact safety performance of the vehicle. One of such sub system level test is Quasi-static side door intrusion Test. The primary purpose of this testing is to measure the Force-deflection characteristics by intrusion of the impactor into the vehicle. These characteristics are controlled by various door components like door beam, latch & striker, hinge etc. This article studies the relation between Side door intrusion and Side collision, effect of above mentioned components on this relation. A theoretical study is done to study this relationship and it is substantiated with experimental data.

Inside cabin of a passenger car, low frequency booming noise still presents a major hurdle for NVH engineers to fine tune a vehicle. Low frequency booming noise is presently taken care with addition of mass damper and large reinforcements. These conventional countermeasures add weight to the vehicle as well as increase the overall production cost. The study presented in this paper proposes a countermeasure model that not only reduces the booming noise but also avoids any weight and cost addition. It has been focused for low frequency booming noise around 30 ∼ 40 Hz. Within the range mentioned, one of the major reasons for booming noise in hatchback models is the bending resonance of backdoor. By modifying the mode of the backdoor in such a manner that it cancels the effect of bending on the vehicle acoustic cavity, improvement can be achieved in terms of sound pressure level at the driver’s right ear location (DREL).

In order to meet the challenges of future CAFE regulations & pollutant emission, vehicle fuel efficiency must be improved upon without compromising vehicle performance. Optimization of engine breathing & its impact on vehicle level fuel economy, performance needs balance between conflicting requirements of vehicle Fuel Economy, performance & drivability. In this study a Port Fuel Injection, naturally aspirated small passenger car gasoline engine was selected which was being used in a typical small passenger car. Simulation approach was used to investigate vehicle fuel economy and performance, where-in 1D CFD Engine model was used to investigate and optimize Valve train events (Intake and exhaust valve open and close timings) for best fuel economy. Engine Simulation software is physics based and uses a phenomenological approach 0-D turbulent combustion model to calculate engine performance parameters. Engine simulation model was calibrated within 95% accuracy of test data.

The fuel efficiency of a vehicle depends on multiple factors such as engine efficiency, type of fuel, aerodynamic drag, and tire friction and vehicle weight. Analysis of weight and functionality was done, to develop a lightweight and low-cost Roof rack rail. The Roof rack rail is made up of a lightweight material with thin cross section and has the design that allows the fitment of luggage carrier or luggage rack on the car roof. In starting this paper describes the design and weight contribution by standard Roof rack rail and its related parts. Secondly, the selection of material within different proposed options studied and a comparison of manufacturing and design-related factors. Thirdly, it has a description of the design of Roof rack rail to accommodate the luggage carrier fitment on the car roof. Moreover, optimizations of Roof rack rail design by continuous change in position, shape, and parts used.

Vehicle Hood being the face of a passenger car poses the challenge to meet the regulatory and aesthetic requirements. Urge to make a saleable product makes aesthetics a primary condition. This eventually makes the role of structure optimization much more important. Pedestrian protection- a recent development in the Indian automotive industry, known for dynamics of cost competitive cars, has posed the challenge to make passenger cars meeting the regulation at minimal cost. The paper demonstrates structure optimization of hood and design of peripheral parts for meeting pedestrian protection performance keeping the focus on low cost of ownership. The paper discusses development of an in-house methodology for meeting Headform compliance of a flagship model of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., providing detailed analysis of the procedure followed from introduction stage of regulatory requirement in the project to final validation of the engineering intent.

Hood is the closure provided in the frontal portion of the vehicle for covering the engine room. Any component disposed in the frontal portion of the vehicle becomes important because of aesthetic as well as regulatory requirements. Introduction of new regulations like pedestrian protection brings new challenges for the original equipment manufacturers and the governing authorities. Introduction of Pedestrian Protection regulation, a recent development in the automotive industry, has thrown several questions in front of original equipment manufacturers. This work explains the procedure to address such question and the learning associated with it.

With the increasing competition in the automotive industry, customer experience & satisfaction is at the top of every organization's goals. The customers have evolved & NVH refinement has become the parameter for their decision making in buying a car. The major source of rumble noise in a vehicle is the induced vibrations due to combustion forces in an IC engine. These vibrations are then transferred to the vehicle body through engine mounts. Hence engine mounts play a key role in defining the NVH & the ride performance of any vehicle. However, it is infeasible to validate every mount design through the physical test as it will be both costly & time-consuming. But multiple design iterations can be verified by the CAE approach quite effectively. This paper focuses on the novel CAE approach to evaluate the mount vibrations due to engine dynamics. The process involves preparing a FEA model of the complete Powertrain system.

Radiators are one of the major components in the automotive engine cooling system. The road excitations from the frame to the radiator are dampened using rubber bushes. In this work, we analyzed a radiator sub-assembly with bushes by applying acceleration which are recorded at the center of gravity of the radiator. The radiator is considered as the concentrated mass which is attached to the upper and the lower radiator tank which is further connected to the frame through the bushings. An implicit transient dynamic analysis is set up. The hyper elastic coefficients for EPDM rubber are determined using the experimental data fit and structural damping coefficients are applied. When excited by the acceleration applied at center of the radiator component, the rubber bushes are deformed severely. Moreover, the analysis shows high strains in certain location on the upper bush where the part showed actual failure in the testing.

In a typical passenger vehicle, there can be different types of noises generated which are broadly categorized as Interior Noise and Exterior Noise. The interior noise sources can be further classified into noises which can be Structure Borne or Air Borne. One of the major sources of both structure borne and airborne noise generation is the powertrain of the vehicle. The structure-borne noise and vibrations generated from the powertrain is usually transferred to the vehicle body through its attachment points to the body and the powertrain driveline. These induced body vibrations can sometimes cause the acoustic cavity of the passenger cabin to go into resonance which results in an annoying and disturbing noise for the passengers, called Booming Noise. Very often, one or more than one vehicle body panels show a dominant contribution in inducing this acoustic cavity resonance.