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This paper presents an experimental setup and an equivalent FEM simulation methodology to accurately predict the response of Engine Control Module (ECM) assembly mounted on a commercial vehicle subjected to road vibrations. Comprehensive vibration study is carried out. It involved Modal characteristics determination followed by random vibration characterization of the ECM assembly. A hammer impact experiment is first performed in lab to estimate the natural frequencies and mode shapes of ECM assembly. Mounting conditions in test specimen are kept similar to the actual mounting settings on vehicle. Natural frequencies and mode shapes predicted from free vibration experiment are compared with finite element (FE) based modal analysis. The importance of capturing the assembly stiffness more accurately by incorporating pre-stress effects like bolt-pretension and gravity, is emphasized.

Vapor management system is critical to manage fuel tank capacity, evaporative emissions and pressure control for hybrid applications. Due to stringent emission norms and other regulations there has been lot of advancements in design and application of vapor control valves that are used in automotive fuel tanks. Continuous exposure of these valves to fuel vapor or fuel in some instances led to swelling of assemblies and poses serious threat to product functionality and maintaining required tolerances. Swelling of plastics in fuel is ideally a case of multi physics, which involves modeling of complex mass transfer phenomena. In this study a simple thermal analogous approach has been used to model swelling behavior by characterizing the basic plastic-fuel soaking through coefficient of hygroscopic swelling. Extensive testing has been performed with multiple plastic-fuel combinations with different shapes at different temperatures.

Small Commercial Vehicle (SCV) is an emerging Commercial Vehicle (CV) segment both in India and throughout the world. Vehicles in this segment have diesel engine of capacity less than 1 l and GVW of less than 3.5 t. Normally for the CV, engines are tested on engine dynamometer for emission test, but SCV are tested on chassis dynamometer as they are classified as N1.1 class vehicles. Hence SCV have to follow same emission regulations as diesel passenger cars. The main challenge is to meet BS-IV NOx and PM emission target together with high torque optimization along with required durability targets. This paper addresses this challenge and reports the work carried out on an Indian SCV with 0.7 l naturally aspirated indirect injection diesel engine.