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Automotive seating is designed by considering safety, comfort and aesthetics for the occupants. Seating comfort is one of the important parameters for the occupant for enhancing the overall experience in a vehicle. Seating comfort is categorized as static (or showroom) comfort and dynamic comfort. The requirements for achieving static and dynamic comfort can sometimes differ and may require design parameters such as PU hardness to be set in opposite directions. This paper presents a case wherein a base seat with good dynamic comfort is taken and an analysis is done to improve upon the static comfort, without compromising on the dynamic comfort. The study focuses on improving the initial comfort by considering various options for seating upholstery.

Use of safety belts inside a vehicle is necessary to ensure the safety of passengers as well as drivers. To promote the use of seat belts, a seatbelt reminder system is utilized. This system incorporates a sensor for checking seat occupancy for the passenger seat. Activation of these sensors depends on various parameters like seat pad shape, seat upholstery, vehicle H-point, a load on the seat, etc. In this study, the load factor on the seat is studied. The load on the seat may come from occupants or due to the objects placed on the seat. The detection of objects as an occupant may result in false seat belt reminder alarm and cause inconvenience to the customers. Subjective analysis and surveys, covering a broad range of market population, were done to identify such objects. Consequently, performance requirements were determined to facilitate sensor optimization and selection.

Powertrain Control development has gone through many changes in terms of process, tools and practice at all OEM's across the geography. This is mainly driven by increased number of powertrain components for control, shorter development schedules, cost control, and the need to realize the potential of electronic control to increase the performance, efficiency, safety and comfort. With the significant advancement in Powertrain Controls and additions of electronic functions, it has become imperative to automate the controller development process in the V-cycle to reduce the time and make the process more efficient while detecting any logic failures upfront at the early stage of the development cycle. Traditional practices and tools of defining the controls cannot meet new requirements. Model Based Design (MBD) approach is a promising solution to meet the critical needs of powertrain control engineering to define the control logic and validate.

The side impact accident is one of the very severe crash modes for the struck side occupants. According to NHTSA fatality reports, side impact accounts for over 25% of the fatalities in the US. Similar fatality estimates have been reported in the EU region. Side crash compliance of a compact car is more severe because of the less space available between the occupant and the vehicle structure, stringent fuel economy, weight and cost targets. The current work focuses on the development of Side body structure of a compact car through Computer Aided Tools (CAE), for meeting the Side crash requirements as per ECE R95 Regulation. A modified design philosophy has been adopted for controlling the intrusion of upper and lower portion of B-pillar in order to mitigate the injury to Euro SIDII dummy. At first, initial CAE evaluation of baseline vehicle was conducted.

Recent advancement in numerical solutions and advanced computational power has given a new dimension to the design and development of new products. The current paper focuses on the details of work done in order to improve the vehicle performance in Offset deformable Barrier (ODB) crash as per ECER-94. A Hybrid approach involving the Structural Crash CAE as well as Multi-body Simulation in MADYMO has been adopted. In first phase of the development, CAE results of Structural deformation as well as Occupant injury of the baseline model were correlated with physical test data. The second phase includes the improvement in intrusion and crash energy absorption by structural countermeasures in the vehicle body. In third phase parametric study has been carried out via Madymo simulation in order to decide on the factors which can be controlled in order to mitigate the Occupant injury. Recommendations of Madymo simulation have been confirmed by conducting Physical sled tests.

Plastic plays a major role in automotive interiors. Till now most of the Indian automobile industries are using plastics mainly to cover the bare sheet metal panels and to reduce the weight of the vehicle along with safety concerns. Eventually Indian customer requirement is changing towards luxury vehicles. Premium look and luxury feel of the vehicle plays an equal role along with fuel economy and cost. Interior cabin is the place where aesthetics and comfort is the key to attract customers. Door Trims are one of the major areas of interiors where one can be able to provide premium feeling to the customer by giving PVC skin and decorative inserts. This paper deals with different types of PVC skins and its properties based on process constraints, complexity of the inserts. Door trim inserts can be manufactured by various methods like adhesive pasting, thermo-compression molding and low pressure injection molding process etc.

The Indian passenger vehicle market has grown by more than 40% by volume in the last decade and has reached a record high in FY23. This has created a more diverse and demanding customer base that values interior design and quality. The modern customer expects a high level of aesthetics and sophistication in their vehicle interiors - including in the luggage area. The Luggage Cover (Parcel Tray) is a component in the luggage area of a passenger vehicle that is used to conceal the luggage & improve its aesthetics. The cover is generally made of thermoplastic material with rotating hinges and is held in its place by the compression from the back door, which is frequently opened and closed. The parts that connect the cover to the door (usually an elastomer interface on the thermoplastic tray) tend to change over a period due to climatic conditions and leads to rattling concerns over a period.

Manual transmission is one of the key system of power-train to which driver directly interacts, so its shift feeling is important for the merchantability. The importance of the gear shift quality of manual transmissions has increased significantly over the past few years as the refinement of other vehicle systems has increased and also due to rise in customer expectations. Shift Tower is a system to assist the driver during selecting and shifting of Gears. The dynamic interaction of shift Tower at a component level is difficult to interpret by traditional test methods and virtually impossible at concept stage. To overcome these difficulties a dynamic model of the entire Shift Tower mechanism i.e. Shift select lever, 3D Ramp, Detent Pin, Spring, Interlock mechanism has been created. The model predicts the gearshift quality i.e. Shift and Select force values for a given set of input parameters, which can be correlated against test data.

The seating system is an inseparable part of any automobile. Its main function is not only to provide a space to the user for driving but also to provide support, comfort and help to ergonomically access the various features and necessary operations of the vehicle. For comfort and accessibility, seats are provided with various mechanisms for adjustments in different directions. Typical mechanisms used for seating adjustment include seatback recliners, lifters (height adjusters), longitudinal adjusters, lumber support, rear seat folding mechanism etc. These mechanisms can be power operated or manual based on vehicle/market requirements. For manual mechanisms, the occupant adjusts the position of seat by operating the mechanism with his/her hand. Often comfort to the occupant during operation is limited to the operating effort of the mechanism. However, as will be shown through this study, operating effort is only one of the parameters which provide overall comfort feeling.

With ever increasing demand for vehicle safety and fuel efficiency, Body in White (BIW) designers are striving for vehicle's body mass optimization leading to the development of lean designs. Nevertheless, considerations like ergonomics also play a significant role while deciding the vehicle structure. As an example, A-pillar (front pillar) plays a major role in vehicle's passive safety. Increase in its cross section size, beyond a particular grade and gauge optimization is eminent to meet target requirements of rigidity and crash. However, the increased obstruction because of the wider section would not only lead to poor visibility and a claustrophobic feeling to the driver but also lead to a lesser response time for him or her to prevent a collision. Obstruction from A-pillar can be a subjective feeling of driver but it should also be quantified and measured to optimize the A-pillar structure. Numerous methodologies are being adopted globally to measure the A-pillar obstruction.

To promote real time monitoring, IUPRm checks has been enforced in India from Apr’23 as a part of BS6-2 regulation. Since IUPRm monitoring is representative of diagnostic frequency in real driving conditions and usage pattern. Therefore, a clear understanding of real-world driving is required to define IUPRm targets. This paper shares methodology and Validation steps for defining IUPR routes for Indian market. Methodology objective is to standardize the market operating conditions over a particular region. Selected Methodology consist of three steps: For defining IUPR route framework, first step is to have a pre-market survey to know current IUPR status and improvement areas in existing market vehicles. Second step is to define market representative localized on road routes based on the finding of Pre-market survey. Third step is to validate defined IUPR routes and correlate the output in reference to coverage of market operating conditions.

In manual transmission vehicles, Clutch has direct interaction with the driver and plays a significant role in defining the drivability and NVH of a vehicle. These key performance factors depend on the interaction of diaphragm and cushion springs of a clutch. For an automobile manufacturer, it’s essential to optimize the characteristics of these springs based vehicle performance requirements. A state of the art analytical model has been developed by modeling the diaphragm and cushion spring with exponential equations. Based on these models, response functions for release load, torque build-up, and pressure plate lift have been derived. Results achieved from these response functions are correlated with test data. Key contributing factors for peak clutch pedal load, vehicle launch acceleration, and disengagement point have been identified by sensitivity analysis. Multi-objective optimization is performed to select optimized parameters for vehicle performance improvement