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GREATER ease of servicing is one of the ultimate goals in the development of dry-type air cleaners. The authors acknowledge, however, that the oil-bath cleaner is a rugged proved component that has done a good job for the farmers who serviced it properly. This paper describes studies made in Illinois of oil-bath and dry air cleaners in field service. At the same fuel/air ratios, the maximum horsepower of a test engine was greater with the dry-type filter than with the oil-bath cleaner. It was found that with AC fine dust and steady airflow, the oil-bath cleaners had significantly lower efficiencies than the dry-type filter. At less than rated airflow the efficiency of the oil-bath cleaner decreased while that of the dry filter remained high.

Increasing energy costs justify research on how to improve utilization of low-grade energy that is abundantly available as waste heat from many thermodynamic processes such as internal combustion engine cycles. One option is to directly generate cooling through absorption/adsorption or vapor jet ejector cycles. As in the case of power generation cycles, cooling cycle efficiencies would increase if the heat input were available at higher temperature. This paper assesses the feasibility of a novel idea that uses a vortex tube to increase the available temperature levels of low-grade heat sources. The desired temperature increase is achieved by sending a stream of vapor that was heated by the waste heat source through a vortex tube, which further elevates the temperature used in a heat driven ejector cooling cycle.

Several types of noise exist in automobiles. The flow-induced noise in the expansion device can be very disturbing since the expansion device is located near the occupants. In many studies, the flow-induced noise is found to be mitigated when the orientation of the tube is changed. However, no study explores the reason why flow-induced noise changes when the orientation of the tube is changed. The flow-induced noise varies along with the flow regimes near the expansion devices. In this paper, an experimental based research is used to study how the tube orientation changes the flow regimes under the same operating conditions. A pumped R134a system with transparent tubes (1/4-inch ID) is used to visualize the flow regimes near the manual expansion valve. The transparent tube is a continuous connection of horizontal tubes, 45° inclined tubes, and vertical tubes.

Experimental schemes, frequency characteristics, subjective and objective sound quality evaluation and sound quality prediction model establishment of a certain mass-production SUV (Sport Utility Vehicle, SUV) manual transmission gear rattle phenomenon were analyzed in this paper. Firstly, vehicle experiments, including experiment conditions, vibration acceleration sensor and microphone arrangements and especial considerations in experiments, were described in detail. Secondly, through time-frequency analysis, broadband characteristics of manual transmission gear rattle noise were identified and vibro-impact of gear rattle occurs in the frequency range of 450~4000Hz on the vehicle idle condition and the creeping condition. Thirdly, based on bandwidth filtering processing of gear rattle noise, subjective assessment experiments by a paired comparison method were carried out.

Oil pump is a critical part of engine lubrication system. The performance and efficiency of oil pump are greatly affected by vibration and noise, which would lead to the pump service life decreasing and pump body easily wearing. Hence the vibration and noise of oil pump is of great importance to study. In this paper, a FEA model of the variable displacement oil pump(VDOP) was established to carry on the modal and noise analysis, while the geometric structure was optimized with test verification. The modal analysis of VDOP was carried out by ABAQUS software, the 3-D unsteady flow field in VDOP was simulated by Pumplinx software, and the sound field was analyzed by ACTRAN acoustic module. Using a special oil pump test bench combined with B&K PULSE vibration and noise test equipment, the NVH and comprehensive performance experiment of the VDOP were carried out here.

To wheel driven electric vehicle, besides road unevenness excitation, the electric motor torque fluctuation has great effects on the whole body vibration (WBV) according to prior research.[1],[2] To evaluate and further reduce the influence of torque fluctuation on the whole body vibration (WBV), vibration characteristic of rear suspension is analyzed thoroughly and finally optimized in this paper. Firstly, based on an existing eccentrical motor driven electric vehicle, a rear twist beam suspension suitable for high frequency analysis is modeled in Adams/View. Secondly, the vibration characteristic is simulated using Adams/Vibration module and verified with natural modal parameters of system. Finally, the vibration characteristic is optimized by adjusting the parameters of bushings using DOE method and proven to be effective to reduce WBV caused by torque fluctuation.

Recently, electro-hydraulic brake systems (EHB) has been developed to take place of the vacuum booster, having the advantage of faster pressure build-up and continuous pressure regulation. In contrast to the vacuum booster, the pressure estimation for EHB is worth to be studied due to its abundant resource (i.e. electric motor) and cost-effective benefit. This work improves an interconnected pressure estimation algorithm (IPEA) based on actuator characteristics by introducing the vehicle dynamics and validates it via vehicle tests. Considering the previous IPEA as the prior pressure estimation, the wheel speed feedback is used for modification via a proportional-integral (PI) observer. Superior to the IPEA based on actuator characteristics, the proposed PEA improves the accuracy by more than 20% under the mismatch of pressure-position relation.

An electronic waste-gated turbocharger for automotive application can accurately control the boost pressure and effectively reduce turbo-lag. It can improve the transient responsive performance of engine and the acceleration performance of vehicle, which makes vehicle have a better adaptation to the complex traffic environment. A detailed analysis of aerodynamic working principle of electronic wastegate is the foundation for designing the control strategy of electronic wastegate. Putting turbine with electronic wastegate under unsteady condition that simulates the pulse exhaust gas of engine and studying influences of different valve opening on the performance of turbine has the practical value. This paper sets fixed and periodical unsteady conditions and adopts numerical methods to explore the performance of turbine in twin-entry turbocharger and the flow loss of bypass. Steady simulation structure is given for reference.

A uniform end interval (time) method was devised for digital computation of wave motion in pipes. Illustration was given for waves in exhaust manifold of an engine with uniform time intervals in terms of crank angles. Method makes convenient the analysis of multicylinder engines.

The transient characteristics of combustion and emissions during the engine start up at different higher cranking speeds for hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) applications were presented in this paper. Cycle-by-cycle analysis was done for each start up case. Intake air mass during the first several cycles decrease as the engine was cranked at higher speed. Ignition timing is delayed with higher cranking speed, which leads to an increase of exhaust temperature. For various start up cases, similar quantity of fuel is injected at the first cycle, but the ignition timing is significantly delayed to meet the acceleration requirement when cranking speed enhanced. Because of the deterioration of intake charge, the air-fuel mixture is over-enriched in the first several cycles for the cases at higher cranking speed. With cranking speed is increased, the in-cylinder residual gas fraction rises, which leads to poor combustion and decrease of mass fraction of burned fuel.

The motor has vibration characteristics of order and multi-band in the frequency domain, which is different from the internal combustion engine when it is used as the vehicle’s drive. These characteristics cannot be briefly attenuated by general methods, but make the phononic crystal (PC) an ideal solution to eliminate the vibration transmission of the motor, because the concentrated vibration peak can easily be blocked by the bandgap. In this paper, one dimensional locally resonant phononic crystal (LRPC) which has low-frequency bandgaps are arranged on the automotive subframe to absorbing vibration. The partial coherence analysis is used to analyze the transfer characteristic of vibration on the subframe. Then, 6 main paths are selected from the 18 vibration transmission paths, based on its high ratio of partial coherence coefficient in a certain frequency, and the arranged position, the spring stiffness and the resonator’s mass of the LRPCs are chosen based on this result.

Highly accurate parking slot detection methods are crucial for Automated Valet Parking (AVP) systems, to meet their demanding safety and functional requirements. While previous efforts have mostly focused on the algorithms’ capabilities to detect different types of slots under varying conditions, i.e. the detection rate, their accuracy has received little attention at this time. This paper highlights the importance of trustworthy slot detection methods, which address both the detection rate and the detection accuracy. To achieve this goal, an accurate slot detection method and a reliable ground-truth slot measurement method have been proposed in this paper. First, based on a 2D laser range finder, datapoints of obstacle vehicles on both sides of a slot have been collected and preprocessed. Second, the Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (DBSCAN) algorithm has been improved to efficiently cluster these unevenly-distributed datapoints.

It is becoming an increasingly important issue to improve NVH performance of electric drive motor for electric vehicle as the market grows rapidly. The correlation between stiffness of rear cover of motor, rotor eccentricity and noise of an electric drive is discussed in this paper which was few mentioned before. Poor stiffness of bearing chamber of rear cover may cause rotor eccentricity, which would lead to additional orders of electromagnetic noise. Stiffness optimization model of rear cover of motor was established, and the Optistruct of Hyper works software was used to improve stiffness as well as mode frequency by designing circular and radial ribs to surround bearing chamber of rear cover under guidance of topology. As compared to basis model with same mass, the 1st and 2nd strict mode frequencies of optimized rear cover separately increased by 11% and 12.5% with numerical simulations.

The Argon Power Cycle engine is a novel concept for high efficiency and zero emission through the replacement of N2 by Ar. However, the higher in-cylinder temperature and pressure as by-products cause heavier knock. The anti-knock strategies, such as reducing compression ratio and retarding ignition time, offset the efficiency increased by the Argon Power Cycle. Therefore, knock control becomes the most urgent task for the Argon Power Cycle engine development. The anti-knock methods, including fuel replacement, ultra-lean combustion, high dilution combustion, and water injection, were considered. The simulated ignition delay times were used to evaluate the probability of knock. The Otto cycle, combined with chemical equilibrium, was utilized to confirm the effect on the thermal conversion efficiency and each in-cylinder thermodynamic state parameter. The results show that the ignition delay times increase by a factor of two when the Ar dilution ratio increases from 79% to 95%.

Thermal fatigue presents a new challenge in cast aluminum engine design. Accurate thermomechanical stress analysis and reliable failure criterion are the keys to a successful life prediction. It is shown that the material stress and strain behavior of cast aluminum is strongly temperature and strain rate sensitive. A unified viscoplasticity constitutive relation is thus proposed to simultaneously describe the plasticity and creep of cast aluminum components deforming at high temperatures. A fatigue failure criterion based on a damage accumulation model is introduced. Damages due to mechanical fatigue, environmental impact and creep are accounted for. The material stress and strain model and thermal fatigue model are shown to be effective in accurately capturing features of thermal fatigue by simulating a component thermal fatigue test using 3D FEA with ABAQUS and comparing the results with measured data.

Thermal efficiencies of 54% have been demonstrated by single cylinder engine testing of advanced diesel engine concepts developed under Department of Energy funding. In order for these concept engines to be commercially viable, cost effective and durable systems for insulating the piston, head, ports and exhaust manifolds will be required. The application and development of new materials such as thick thermal barrier coating systems will be key to insulating these components. Development of test methods to rapidly evaluate the durability of coating systems without expensive engine testing is a major objective of current work. In addition, a novel, low cost method for producing thermal barrier coated pistons without final machining of the coating has been developed.

The exhaust aftertreatment strategy is one of the most fundamental aspects of spark ignition engine technologies. For various types of engines (e.g., carburetor engine, PFI engine and GDI engine), measuring, purifying, modeling, and control strategies regarding the exhaust aftertreatment systems vary significantly. The primary goal of exhaust aftetreatment systems is to reduce the exhaust emission levels of NOx, HC and CO as well as to lower combustion soot. In general, there is a tradeoff among different engine performance aspects. The exhaust catalytic systems, such as the three way catalyst (TWC) and lean NOx trap (LNT) converters, can be applied together with the development of other engine technologies (e.g., variable valve timing, cold start). With respect to engine soot, some advanced diagnosing techniques are essential to obtain thorough investigation of exhaust emission mechanisms.

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.

Centrifugal Pendulum Vibration Absorber (CPVA for short) is used to absorb torsional vibrations caused by the shifting motion of the engine. It is increasingly used in modern powertrains. In the research of the dynamic characteristics of the CPVA, it is necessary to obtain the real motion of the pendulum to compensate the fitting performance of mathematical model. The usual method is to install an angle sensor to measure the movement of the pendulum. On the one hand, the installation of the sensor will affect its movement to a certain extent, so that the measurement results do not match the actual motion. On the other hand, the motion of the pendulum is not only the rotational motion around the rotational axis of the CPVA rotor, but also has translation relative to it. As a result, it is difficult to obtain accurate motion only by the angle sensor. We proposed a non-contact centrifugal pendulum motion measurement method.

The nonlinear characteristics impact of multi-staged stiffness clutch damper on the vehicle creeping is investigated by using the lumped-parameter modeling method as a certain mass-production passenger sedan is taken as the research subject. Firstly, a quasi-transient engine model of an inline four-cylinder and four-stroke engine, based on measured data of cylinder gas pressure versus crankshaft angle, is derived. Effective output torque is acquired and as the input excitation to the driveline system. Secondly, a 12-DOF (Degree of Freedom) nonlinear and branched powertrain system and vehicle longitudinal dynamics model is established. The differential mechanism characteristics and dynamic tire property based on the LuGre tire model are considered. Then, for a traditional two-staged stiffness clutch damper in consideration of hysteresis characteristics, vehicle powertrain system responses in both the time and frequency domain are obtained.