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Surface roughness measurement is an important one in any manufacturing next to dimensions. In this investigation, a vision system and image processing tools were used to develop reliable surface roughness characterization technique for Electrical Discharge Machined surfaces. A CMOS camera with red LED light source were used for capturing images of EDMed surfaces. A separate signal vector generated for all the images from its image pixel intensity matrices. The mean, skewness and kurtosis were obtained from the signal vector. The mean, skewness and kurtosis of the images signal vector correlates very well with the stylus measured hybrid roughness parameters Rda and Rdq. Hence the technique may be preferred for online surface roughness characterization of Electrical Discharge Machined (EDMed) surfaces.

Basic Function: Vehicle remote is used for vehicle lock/unlock/search/Hazard lights /approach light functions for customer convenience and vehicle security system. Conventional approach: 1 Use of separate RF (Radio Frequency) receiver -Additional Cost impact. 2 High remote RF power - Reduced remote battery life and bigger remote size required 3 High sensitivity RF receiver - High cost. Low Cost approach: It involves the followings: 1 Integration of RF receiver inside the Body Control Module (BCM). 2 Low Power Remote and Optimization of Remote PCB layout to get the maximum power. 3 External wired antenna taken out from BCM and proper routine need be ensured to get the best performance. 4 BCM mounting location to get the best remote range in all vehicle directions. This paper relates to the methodology for low cost approach for the RF communication between remote transmitter and receiver with achieving the best remote performance at vehicle level condition.

The usage of forging a preformed, near net shape, compacted and sintered metal powder has been widely accepted since the eighties and is now one of the mainstays for producing Connecting rods in North America. However, its use in Indian subcontinent is limited as its counterpart i.e. conventional steel forging is still the most dominant. Powder metallurgy route has many advantages like good dimensional accuracy; minimum scattering of weight etc. Despite these advantages, the Powder metallurgy process is still not preferred predominantly due to technical (endurance) and infrastructural limitations. This work envisages combining the benefits of powder metallurgy process with the required mechanical properties viz. tensile and fatigue strength alongside design modifications to meet the requirements of a connecting rod for a 2-cylinder diesel engine. The connecting rods met the fatigue life at the required FOS equaling the performance of a conventionally forged connecting rod.

Inconel 825 is nickel (Ni)-iron (Fe)-chromium (Cr) alloy with additions of copper (Cu), molybdenum (Mo), and titanium (Ti). The alloy has excellent resistance to corrosion and is often the most cost-effective alloy in sulphuric acid piping vessels and chemical process equipment. No attempt of applying MQL with three nanofluids was reported conferring to the works accessed. The present study is focused on evaluating the effect of the addition of three nanoparticles (CuO, Al2O3, and CNT) in vegetable oil applied by MQL mode during turning of Inconel 825 with coated carbide tool. Cutting force, surface roughness, and tool wear are evaluated. The results showed that the addition of nCNT substantially improved the machining performance and smaller flank the tool edge, while the adhesion and abrasion are observed as wear mechanism and better results are obtained at 0.5% of nCNT+ vegetable oil to produce the lowest values.

Breather assembly is mounted on transmission to maintain the pressure equilibrium inside transmission. Breather allows the transmission to breathe air when the air inside transmission expands or contracts due to heating and cooling of lubricating oil during vehicle running. Breather allows the hot air to escape and cool air to enter into the transmission to prevent overheating issue. Failure of breather assembly can lead to pressure buildup inside transmission and further leading to leakage from transmission oil seals. Oil leakage through the breather assembly is governed by parameters such as opening pressure, location and orientation of breather etc. The transmission undergoes different operating conditions of input speed, load, temperature, inclination etc. Also, breather assembly is designed and positioned in such a way that there is no leakage through breather due to oil splash inside the transmission.

Brake system is the most important system in the vehicle considering the overall vehicle safety and speed control. Brake applications are repetitive during a city traffic and hilly terrain on downhill gradient. Frequent braking gives rise to an overheating of the brake drum and its components. Braking operations at high temperature gives rise to problems like reduced deceleration due to loss of brake pad friction characteristics, pad softening and sticking to drum, pad distortion and wear etc. All these factors collectively result in deterioration of the braking performance and reduction of brake pad durability with time. Till date most of the thermal analysis performed for brake drum heating are through physical testing using brake system prototypes and by means of CFD tools. These methods are time consuming and expensive. There is a need for an alternative method to reduce physical trials and prototype building and reduce dependency on CFD analysis.

The objective of the research is to develop a lightweight yet stiff, 2 piston fixed brake caliper which can be used in formula student race car. To make a race car, its components need to be lighter. To stop a car with minimum stopping distance, it needs to have a sophisticated braking system with well-designed components. The designing of the caliper is carried out on the Altair Inspire software. The topology optimisation algorithm is used to minimise the weight of the caliper without compromising the stiffness. The structural analysis is also carried out on the Altair Inspire. The caliper is also tested for fatigue failure using Ansys.

A numerical method for generating a blockloading profile from a rainflow histogram is described. Unlike previous techniques, this method produces a blockloading profile which, when rainflow-counted, yields a rainflow histogram identical to the original. When implemented with modern data acquisition and signal-processing techniques, this generation method provides a means of developing blockloading test profiles which are correlated with actual service data. This key benefit elevates existing simple testing systems as useful and productive tools despite the emrgence of more complex testing systems.

Product development processes generate large quantities of experimental and analytical data. The data evaluation process is usually quite lengthy since the data needs to be extracted from a large number of individual output files and arranged in suitable formats before they can be compared. When the data quantity grows extremely large, manual extraction cannot be done in a limited timeframe. This paper describes a set of tools developed by MTS engineers to automatically extract the desired information from a large number of files and perform data post-processing. The tools greatly improved both speed and accuracy of the evaluation process during the development of a sound quality-based end-of-line inspection system for seat tracks [1]. It allowed engineers to quickly gather a comprehensive understanding of the relative importance of individual design parameters and of their correlation to the subjective perception of the sound quality of the seat track.

In case of new generation of commercial vehicles, three shaft transmissions are designed with press fitted gears on counter shaft. It allows user to save the cost of transmission manufacturing by considerable amount. In case of heavy commercial vehicles, which are being used in abusive conditions such as mining and off-road applications, it becomes absolutely necessary to ensure that the gears press fit should withstand the continuous loads and impact loads. There are design guidelines available to ensure proper fit and torque carrying capacity between the mating parts. Still, there are gear slippage, shaft and gear breakage failures in the field. In this scenario, there is a need to develop bench test procedure which will capture such failures in the prototype stage. Looking at the failures in the field, it is necessary to capture all above hidden failures in design validation phase.

Tailgate stoppers play vital role in exerting preload on the Tailgate latch mechanism and also restrict the relative motion of the Tailgate against vehicle Body in White (BIW). These stoppers act as over-slam dampeners and reduce the transmissibility of vibrations thereby reduce the risk of Squeaks & Rattles (S&R) noises. S&R noises from Tailgate are most annoying to the rear passengers in the vehicle and are recurring in nature. Preventing these issues during design is a challenging task. S&R risk simulations enable us to conduct virtual Design of Experiments (DOEs) and arrive at optimal solutions. This approach helps in reducing the cost of the design changes that are required in the physical prototype at the later stages of product development and save time. The risk evaluation in the simulations is based on the relative displacement at the interfaces of two components.

The surface properties have a vital role in the overall performance of the parts like brake shoe pad and other frame system. The mechanical and residual stress measurements of aluminium alloy 5083 were investigated on friction stir processed plates using the reinforcements of chromium oxide (Cr2O3) and titanium dioxide (TiO2) separately as well as combination of these powders. A comparative study was made to analyze the effects of reinforcements, tool type (cylindrical and threaded), parameters and the volume fraction of the reinforcements. The mechanical properties such as surface hardness and residual stress of the friction stir processed specimens were investigated. The experimental results shows that there was a significant increase in surface hardness (118 HRC) as well as a decrease in residual stress compare to the base metal. This study also reveals that the threaded tool with a reinforcement of Cr2O3 and TiO2 reflected better mechanical properties than the cylindrical tool.

In Additive manufacturing, Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) is a rapid manufacturing technique used for manufacturing of functional component. Finely powered metal is melted by using high-energy fiber laser, by Island principle strategy that produces mechanically and thermally stable metallic component with reduced stresses, thermal gradients and at high precision. Inconel is an austenitic chromium nickel-based superalloy often used in the applications which require high strength and temperature resistant. It can retain its properties at high temperature. An attempt is made to examine the effect of laser shot peening (LSP) on DMLS Inconel 718 sample. Microstructure shows elliptical shaped structure and formation of new grain boundaries. The surface roughness of the material has been increased due to the effect of laser shock pulse and ablative nature. Macro hardness increased to 13% on the surface.

The current research work scrutinized the influence of plasma arc in the metallurgical and mechanical behavior of Nimonic 80A weldment. Defect free weld bead of 6 mm thickness was achieved in a single pass through plasma arc welding. The microstructure of weldment is decorated with cellular dendritic structure at the center and at the weld interface region columnar dendritic structure was observed. Metallurgical analysis showed the Cr and Ti secondary precipitates in the interdendritic region of the WZ. The existence of M23C6 and Cr2Ti were observed through the X-ray diffraction analysis. Both tensile test and microhardness test were conducted to study the mechanical properties of weldment. The result concluded that both the strength and ductility inferior than base metal and the hardness of the weld bead is similar to that of BMl.

The transportation of hot metal from blast furnaces to melting shops is carried out by molten steel transfer vehicle such as Torpedo ladle car in the steel plants. In need to design Torpedo ladle car within size limitation, capacity requirement and withstanding the impact, static, thermal shock and abrasion conditions, structural analysis is essential for validation. In this paper, stress and model analysis for upper and lower bolsters of Torpedo Ladle Car is carried out. The components are modelled in CAD and analysed using finite element method using software with the required boundary conditions. The results of structural analysis of bolster components are presented and discussed. The results shows that the deflection at the centre of upper and lower bolster was due to bending and applied load. The modal analysis predicted the natural frequencies by using block lanczos method.

S.A.V.E. (SOLAR-ASSISTED VEHICLE ELECTRICAL SYSTEM) is a microcontroller-based closed loop system designed to optimize the duty cycle of alternator in conventional vehicle electrical system. This has been done by integrating a SOLAR PANEL on the rooftop of a popular hatchback. The SOLAR PANEL supplies continuous power to battery for charging thereby reducing alternator duty cycle. Consequently, in order to optimize/control alternator functioning based on demand, a microcontroller has been incorporated. S.A.V.E. consists of a microcontroller which senses the instantaneous electrical load (in terms of current & voltage drawn) from battery. The controller using the intelligent algorithm keeps on checking this real-time consumption with the threshold values & decides when to activate/deactivate alternator. Thus with this controller, a) reduction in actual CO₂ emission & consequent, and b) 6% improvement in vehicle fuel efficiency has been achieved.

State of Charge (SoC) estimation of battery plays a key role in strategizing the power distribution across the vehicle in Battery Management System. In this paper, a model for SoC estimation using Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) is developed in Simulink. This model uses a 2nd order Resistance-Capacitance (2RC) Equivalent Circuit Model (ECM) of Lithium Ferrous Phosphate (LFP) cell to simulate the cell behaviour. This cell model was developed using the Simscape library in Simulink. The parameter identification experiments were performed on a new and a used LFP cell respectively, to identify two sets of parameters of ECM. The cell model parameters were identified for the range of 0% to 100% SoC at a constant temperature and it was observed that they vary as a function of SoC. Hence, variable resistance and capacitance blocks are used in the cell model so that the cell parameters can vary as a function of SoC.

As automotive technology has evolved, gear rattle has become a prominent contributor for cabin noise as the masking from the engine noise has decreased. The market and customer expectation make the rattle noise a question to be addressed as early as possible in the vehicle development process. However, to simulate rattle, it calls for a detailed modeling of different complex subsystems of driveline to represent their true characteristics. Thus, the paper adopts an FE based elastic multi body dynamics model to predict gear rattle. The approach involves modeling of a complete flexible driveline using condensed FE models from Nastran in AVL Excite Powerunit/Transmission module. It includes combustion pressure as input excitations to crankshaft and then predicts parameters like gear teeth impacts, gear normal meshing force, dynamic mesh stiffness & overall contact state in transient and frequency domain. The output parameters are then analyzed to evaluate the rattle index.

Engine performance and emission control are key attributes in the overall engine development in which sealing of the mating components plays an important role to achieve the same. Rubber gaskets are being used for sealing of different Internal Combustion (IC) engine components. Gasket sealing performance needs to be ensured at initial development stage to avoid the design changes at the later part of development cycle. Design changes at later stage of development can potentially influence parameters like optimization, cost and time to market. Demand of utilization of virtual tools (front loading) is growing with the increasing challenges like stringent product development cycle time and overall project cost. This paper describes a procedure to simulate the rubber gasket and groove for different material conditions (dimensional tolerances). This entire simulation is divided into two phases. In the first phase of the simulation, Load Deflection curve (LD curve) is established.

The authors of this technical paper conceptualize and illustrate a powertrain architecture for a hybrid electric vehicle coupled with a unique strategy to reduce a real life problem of driving in snail paced traffic. This architecture utilizes a relatively low powered hybrid electric prime mover that is generally used in mild hybrid vehicles, in an arrangement similar to a parallel hybrid system. Here, the electric machine is mounted on the input shaft of the gearbox and the clutch is actuated automatically through an Automated Manual Transmission (AMT) system. Therefore, it is possible to completely disengage the engine from the driveline and drive the vehicle independently through an appropriately sized electric prime mover. The high gear ratio between the drivetrain and the electric prime mover at lower gears can be leveraged to provide low velocity electric creep mode during which the vehicle can function as a pure Electric Vehicle (EV) while engine remains off.