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The study is carried out through numerical and experimental methods. The finite element method is used to simulate the support mechanical behavior via modal analysis, and for the evaluation of stress concentration regions through pressure and thermoelastic static analyses, and dynamic analysis. The fatigue life is calculated for the presented stresses. Stress, acceleration and temperature data were obtained through dynamic test. For material evaluation, chemical analysis, hardness and metallographic analysis were carried out. For thoroughness, a failed support fractography will be presented. The objective of this study is to correlate the data obtained by numerical method with experimental data, and as a result, the support failure mechanism was identified. A modified support is presented to avoid the failure for the determined loads. The support within the proposed modifications reduces the current maximum stress in 41% and improved the fatigue life in 4.99e5 cycles.

This work reports the first stage in the experimental optimization of a medium duty truck, equipped with a new engine, with four cylinders and high power, concerning both the noise emission for the environment and the noise level in the passengers' compartment. In the first stage of this work, comparative measurements among the noise levels for vehicles in different configurations were made, in order to identify the most important sources in the vehicle's noise level, as well as to serve as indicative for project improvements. Each system configuration was analyzed separately, in order to obtain a comparative evaluation of the different vehicle configurations along the whole period of measurements.

New demands for the European Market claimed a new medium duty truck. Aim was not only to comply with new legislations, but also achieve better driving comfort and dynamic characteristics. The development of a new cab suspension was the answer given by means of an international project executed by the Technology Development Center of Mercedes-Benz do Brasil (CDT) with support of other technical divisions of our Development Center in Germany. High-level Teamwork Brazil/Germany at all levels from project coordination down to the plant assembly line was the key to reach an outstanding result with an extra achievement of weight reduction. Complete integration of all involved collaborators in Brazil and in Germany proved to be the main reason to get at the high efficiency shown during the development tasks. This article presents a brief overview of the undertaken development steps together with the challenges and the solutions given to assure the success of the international teamwork.

Because of the increasing need to reduce the time of development of new products, or even to evaluate the reliability of products, one has been noticing a trend to rationalize field tests through essays in ever more representative test benches, within a shorter period of time at a lower cost. In the automotive industry, the trend is to increase the reliability of tests in benches. The quantity of simulated parameters is increasing, what demands an ever increasing survey of data based on measurements of signals of deformation of leaves of spring leaf and courses of suspension in experimental vehicles.

The logistics process in Brazil and the world represents a significant portion of the cost of manufactured products, either for export or import. The availability of technologies that make the logistic process more efficient directly affects the product’s transportation productivity and makes them more competitive. This paper presents a telemetry model of commercial vehicles integrated with harvest machines in agriculture operations, allowing accurate scheduling of loading and unloading processes at the field. In this study, we introduce a conceptual model of a technological matrix, where the shared topologies of vehicle information processing help predict failures, identification of wear of vehicle and machine’s components. The opportunity is demonstrated to collect data from agricultural machines and combine them with data extracted from trucks. The sharing of information on farm machinery and trucks in real-time establishes an essential change in crop management in the field.

Mandatory policies have played an important role for the automakers develop better projects in terms of safety and fuel efficiency; while customers of commercial vehicles are mainly interested in lowering the Total Cost Ownership (TCO). A common factor among these requirements is the driving performance, which is influenced by external sources. A lot of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and tech companies are launching driving feedback systems that look over all of the data from the vehicle, driver and road in order to generate outputs to improve driver behavior. Understanding human machine interface (HMI) and applying Behaviorism concepts to the analysis of these systems, this paper is aimed to discuss how different driver coaching systems work. Overall, the main result is the changes in decision making outcomes about driving styles through enhancing awareness.