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Nitridng usually improves wear resistance and can be accomplished using a gas or plasma method; it's necessary to find if there is any difference in surface roughness, wear and/or wear mechanism when choosing between methods for nitriding. In this study, Ball-on-disk wear test was compared on coupons nitrided with five different nitriding cycles that processed at temperatures of 500-570°C, with a processing time of 8 - 80 hrs. Different compound layer thicknesses were formed, (5-8μm), and a minimum of 0.38 mm case depth was produced. Nitrided samples were also compared to nitrocarburized and the nitrided coupons with a “0” compound layer in a ball-on-disk test. Few selected coupons were post-polished and wear test on ball-on-disk test was compared with the coupons without post polishing. Optical surface roughness using White Light Interferometry (WLIM) and metallurgical testing was performed.

The tribological performance of nanofluids consisting of ZnO nanoparticles dispersed with a stabilizer in an API Group III oil was investigated. Recent research suggests that these fluids may reduce friction and wear compared to the base oil when used as a lubricant in metal-on-metal tests. The effects of nanoparticle concentration and test temperature on friction and wear were studied. Tests were run at 50°C and 100°C to investigate the viability of the fluids at elevated temperatures because possible applications include use as engine lubricants. Nanofluids showed friction reduction of up to 5.2% and reduced wear by up to 82.8% versus oil with only stabilizer at the highest ZnO concentration and the lowest temperature. Stabilizer increased wear at every concentration, but did not affect friction significantly. Fluid viscosity was also investigated. At 30°C, significant shear-thinning behavior was observed for the 2% ZnO solution, and a viscosity versus shear rate curve was found.

The multi-body dynamics simulation and physical iteration were carried out based on the 4-channel road simulation bench, the solution of fatigue test bench which was suitable for cab with frame and suspension was designed. Large load and displacement above the suspension can be loaded on the test bench, and the same weak position of cab exposed on the road test can be assessed well on the fatigue test bench. The effectiveness of the bench test solution was verified though comparative study. And it has important reference for the same type of cab assembly with suspension in the fatigue bench test. According to the durability specifications of cab assembly, a multi-body dynamics model with a satisfactory accuracy was built. And the fixture check and virtual iteration analysis were used to verify the effectiveness of the solution. According to the road load signal analysis and multi-body dynamics analysis results, the test bench with linear guide and spherical joint was built.

Material formability is a very important aspect in the automotive stamping, which must be tested for the success of manufacturing. One of the most important sheet metal formability parameters for the stamping is the edge tear-ability. In this paper, a novel test method has been present to test the aluminum sheet edge tear-ability with 3D digital image correlation (DIC) system. The newly developed test specimen and fixture design are also presented. In order to capture the edge deformation and strain, sample's edge surface has been sprayed with artificial speckle. A standard MTS tensile machine was used to record the tearing load and displacement. Through the data processing and evaluation of sequence image, testing results are found valid and reliable. The results show that the 3D DIC system with double CCD can effectively carry out sheet edge tear deformation. The edge tearing test method is found to be a simple, reliable, high precision, and able to provide useful results.

This research focuses on the commercial 6111 aluminum alloy as the subject of investigation. By designing tensile specimens with the same characteristic dimensions but varying fillet radii, the effects of fillet radius on the tensile properties and stress concentration effects of the aluminum alloy were studied through tensile testing and digital image correlation techniques. The results demonstrate that with an increase in fillet radius, the failure strength and stress distribution of the aluminum alloy specimens have both undergone alterations. This phenomenon can be attributed to the reduction of stress concentration at the fillet due to the larger fillet radius. Further verification through digital image correlation reaffirms that samples with a fillet radius of 10mm exhibit notable stress concentration effects at the fillet, while specimens with a fillet radius increased to 40mm display uniform plastic deformation across the parallel section.

This paper presents the measurement and analysis of the edge stretching limit of aluminum alloy using digital image correlation. The edge stretching limit, also known as the “edge thinning limit,” is the maximum thinning strain at a point of edge failure resulting from tension; which may be predisposed by edge quality. Edge fracture is a vital failure mode in sheet metal forming, however it is very difficult to measure. A previous study enabled the measurement of edge thinning strain by using advanced digital image correlation but it did not consider how the edge quality could affect the edge stretching limit of aluminum alloy. This paper continues to measure edge thinning strain by comparing polished to unpolished AA5754, thus determining the effect edge quality has on the edge stretching limit. To enable the measurement by optical method for a very long and thin sample, a notch is used to localize where edge failure occurs.

The action of load on the component is crucial to evaluate the performance of durability. Another factor that affects fatigue life is the boundary conditions of the test specimen being tested by introducing unrealistic loads on the component of interest. The physical test is widely conducted in the laboratory. The fixture provides additional constraints on the test specimen as well as reaction forces to balance the test system [1]. The characteristics of the fixture involved in the test is important to analyze and assess the test results [2]. The impact of the reaction force of the fixture on the spindle-coupled axle road simulation test is presented in this article. A simplified 7-DoF (degrees of freedom) model is introduced to demonstrate the dynamic behavior of the vehicle. The influence on the internal load by the fixture has been analyzed. Followed by a more detailed MBS (multibodysystem) model to give a thorough understanding of the phenomenon.

Draw beads are widely used in the binder of a draw die for regulating the restraining force and control the draw-in of a metal blank. Different sheet materials and local panel geometry request different local draw bead configurations. Even the majority of draw bead is single draw bead, the alternative double draw bead does have its advantages, such as less bending damage may be brought to the sheet material and more bead geometry features available to work on. In this paper, to measure the pulling force when a piece of sheet metal passing through a draw bead on an inclined binder, the AA5XXX and AA6XXX materials were tested and its strain were measured with a digital image correlation (DIC) system. Five different types of double bead configurations were tested. The beads are installed in a Stretch-Bend-Draw-System (SBDS) test device. The clearance between a male and a female bead is 10% thicker than the sheet material. A tensile machine was used to record the pulling force.

Polymer plastics are widely used in automotive light weight design. Tensile tests are generally used to obtain material stress-strain curves. Due to the natural of the plastic materials, it could be elongated more than several hundred percent of its original length before breaking. Digital Image Correlation (DIC) Analysis is a precise, full field, optical measurement method. It has been accepted as a practical in-field testing method by the industry. However, with the traditional single-camera or dual-camera DIC system, it is nearly impossible to measure the extreme large strain. This paper introduces a unique experimental procedure for large elongation measurement. By utilization of quad-camera DIC system and data stitch technique, the strain history for plastic material under hundreds percent of elongation can be measured. With a quad-camera DIC system, the correlation was conducted between two adjacent cameras.

Vehicle front panel is an interior part which has a major impact on the consumers’ experience of the vehicles. To keep a good appearance during long time aging period, most of the front panel is designed as a rough surface. Some types of surface defects on the rough surface can only be observed under the exposure of certain angled sun light. This brings great difficulties in finding surface defects on the production line. This paper introduces a novel polarized laser light based surface quality inspection method for the rough surfaces on the vehicle front panel. By using the novel surface quality inspection system, the surface defects can be detected real-timely even without the exposure under certain angled sun light. The optical fundamentals, theory derivation, experiment setup and testing result are shown in detail in this paper.

Vacuum suction cups are used as transforming handles in stamping lines, which are essential in developing automation and mechanization. However, the vacuum suction cup will crack due to fatigue or long-term operation or installation angle, which directly affects production productivity and safety. The better design will help increase the cups' service life. If the location of stress concentration can be predicted, this can prevent the occurrence of cracks in advance and effectively increase the service life. However, the traditional strain measurement technology cannot meet the requirements of tracking large-field stains and precise point tracking simultaneously in the same area, especially for stacking or narrow parts of the suction cups. The application must allow multiple measurements of hidden component strain information in different fields of view, which would add cost.

In this paper, the principles, advantages and disadvantages of the main technology of variable strength design of automobile B-pillar Based on the finite element simulation technology, the local stress variable strength design effect of Automobile B-pillar structure is simulated, compared and evaluated. The simulation results show that with the same mechanical properties, the overall lightweight degree of B-pillar structure with variable strength design can be reduced by about 8.9%. With the expansion of the strengthening area of variable strength design of parts, the degree of lightweight of parts can be further improved. It can be seen that the local stress variable strength design method provides a new technical option for the lightweight design of automobile parts.

Lane Keeping Assistance (LKA) system is a very important part in Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). It prevents a vehicle from departing out of the lane by exerting intervention. But an inappropriate performance during LKA intervention makes driver feel uncomfortable. The intervention of LKA can be divided into 3 parts: intervention timing, intervention process and intervention ending. Many researches have studied about the intervention timing and ending, but factors during intervention process also affect driver feelings a lot, such as yaw rate and steering wheel velocity. To increase driver’s acceptance of LKA, objective and subjective tests were designed and conducted to explore important indices which are highly correlated with the driver feelings. Different kinds of LKA controller control intervention process in different ways. Therefore, it’s very important to describe the intervention process uniformly and objectively.

This research studies the transformation kinetics of austempered ductile iron (ADI) with and without nickel as the main alloying element. ADI has improved mechanical properties compared to ductile iron due to its ausferrite microstructure. Not only can austempered ductile iron be produced with high strength, high toughness and high wear resistance, the ductility of ADI can also be increased due to high carbon content austenite. Many factors influence the transformation of phases in ADI. In the present work, the addition of nickel was investigated based on transformation kinetics and metallography observation. The transformation fractions were determined by Rockwell hardness variations of ADI specimens. The calculation of transformation kinetics and activation energy using the “Avrami Equation” and “Arrhenius Equation” is done to describe effects of nickel alloy for phase reactions.

With the increasing worldwide concern on environmental pollution, battery electrical vehicles (BEV) have attracted a lot attention. However, it still couldn’t satisfy the market requirements because of the low battery power density, high cost and long charging time. The range-extended electrical vehicle (REEV) got more attention because it could avoid the mileage anxiety of the BEVs with lower cost and potentially higher efficiency. When internal combustion engine (ICE) works as the power source of range extender (RE) for REEV, its NVH, emissions in starting process need to be optimized. In this paper, a 2-cylinder PFI gasoline engine and a permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) are coaxially connected. Meanwhile, batteries and load systems were equipped. The RE co-control system was developed based on Compact RIO (Compact Reconfigurable IO), Labview and motor control unit (MCU).

The thermophysical parameters and amount of composite phase change materials (PCMs) have decisive influence on the thermal control effects of thermal management systems (TMSs). At the same time, the various thermophysical parameters of the composite PCM are interrelated. For example, increasing the thermal conductivity is bound to mean a decrease in the latent heat of phase change, so a balance needs to be achieved between these parameters. In this paper, a prismatic LiFePO4 battery cell cooled by composite PCM is comprehensively analyzed by changing the phase change temperature, thermal conductivity and amount of composite PCM. The influence of the composite PCM parameters on the cooling and temperature homogenization effect of the TMS is analyzed. which can give useful guide to the preparation of composite PCMs and design of the heat transfer enhancement methods for TMSs.

In recent years, dual phase (DP) Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS) and Ultra High Strength Steels (UHSS) are considered as prominent materials in the automotive industry due to superior structural performance and vehicle weight reduction capabilities. However, these materials are often sensitive to trimmed edge cracking if stretching along sheared edge occurs in such processes as stretch flanging. Another major issue in the trimming of UHSS is tool wear because of higher contact pressures at the interface between cutting tools and sheet metal blank caused by UHSS’s higher flow stresses and the presence of a hard martensitic phase in the microstructure. The objective of the current paper is to study the influence of trimming conditions and tool wear on quality and stretchability of trimmed edge of DP980 steel sheet. For this purpose, mechanically trimmed edges were characterized for DP980 steel and compared with other steels such as HSLA 350 and BH210.

Fatigue strength mean and standard deviation may be estimated by the Probit and 2-Point test methods. In this paper, methodologies for conducting the tests are developed and results from Monte Carlo simulation are presented. The results are compared with those from concurrent testing with the staircase method. While the Probit and 2-Point methods are intuitively attractive, their results are significantly different from those from the staircase method. The latter remains the best of the three.

The formation is a crucial step in the production process of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), during which the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) is formed on the surface of the anode particles to passivate the electrode. It determines the performance of the battery, including its capacity and lifetime. A meticulously designed formation protocol is essential to regulate and optimize the stability of the SEI, ultimately achieving the optimal performance of the battery. Current research on formation protocols in lithium-ion batteries primarily focuses on temperature, current, and voltage windows. However, there has been limited investigation into the influence of different initial pressures on the formation process, and the evolution of cell pressure during formation remains unclear. In this study, a pressure-assisted formation device for lithium-ion pouch cells is developed, equipped with pressure sensors.

The performance of the rear axle plays an important role in the performance of vehicle, and its fatigue durability is an integral part in the vehicle development. Taking a SUV model as the research subject, a new methodology of multi-channel spindle coupled road simulator and fatigue simulation analysis for rear axle assembly was introduced in the paper, aiming to address the fatigue design and its verification for the rear axle in the development phase. Firstly, road loads in the proving ground was collected by arranging proper sensors. Secondly, physical iteration was performed on the multichannel spindle coupled road simulator by taking six component forces at the wheel hub as the target signals. Then, after the time waveform replication of the loads the durability test was conducted. Finally, the validated simulation model was successfully implemented to improve the fatigue life of the axle.