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The Ford GT Program Team was allocated just 22 months from concept to production to complete the Electrical and Electronics systems of the Ford GT. This reduced vehicle program timing - unlike any other in Ford's history -- demanded that the team streamline the standard development process, which is typically 54 months. This aggressive schedule allowed only 12 weeks to design the entire electrical and electronic system architecture, route the wire harnesses, package the components, and manufacture and/or procure all components necessary for the first three-vehicle prototype build.

As part of the International Lubricant Standardization and Approval Committee's (ILSAC) goal of developing a global automatic transmission fluid (ATF) specification, members have been evaluating test methods that are currently used by various automotive manufacturers for qualifying ATF for use in their respective transmissions. This report deals with comparing test methods used for determining torque capacity in friction systems (shifting clutches). Three test methods were compared, the Plate Friction Test from the General Motors DEXRON®-III Specification, the Friction Durability Test from the Ford MERCON® Specification, and the Japanese Automotive Manufacturers Association Friction Test - JASO Method 348-95. Eight different fluids were evaluated. Friction parameters used in the comparison were breakaway friction, dynamic friction torque at midpoint and the end of engagement, and the ratio of end torque to midpoint torque.

Ride Hailing service and Dynamic Shuttle are two key smart mobility practices, which provide on-demand door-to-door ride-sharing service to customers through smart phone apps. On the other hand, some big companies spend millions of dollars annually in third party vendors to offer shuttle services to pick up and drop off employees at fixed locations and provide them daily commutes for employees to and from work. Efficient fixed routing algorithms and analytics are the key ingredients for operating efficiency behind these services. They can significantly reduce operating costs by shortening bus routes and reducing bus numbers, while maintaining the same quality of service. This study developed an off-line optimization routing method for employee shuttle services including regular work shifts and demand based shifts (e.g. overtime shifts) in some regions.

Past studies have shown that NVH CAE tire model quality is not adequate to correctly capture a mid-frequency range (100-300 Hz). A new methodology has been developed to estimate tire forces that are independent of dynamic characteristics of vehicle suspension and rig test fixture. The forces are called tire blocked forces and defined as a force generated by a tire/wheel system whose boundary condition is constrained. The tire blocked force is estimated by removing the dynamic effect of the tire force measurement fixture. The blocked forces can be applied to CAE models to predict vehicle road NVH responses. This new method can also be used as a target setting tool. Tire suppliers can check the blocked tire forces from the rig testing data against a force target before they submit tires to automotive manufacturers for evaluations on a prototype vehicle.

Today's automotive and electronics technologies are evolving so rapidly that educators and industry are both challenged to re-educate the technological workforce in the new area before they are replaced with yet another generation. In early November 2009 Ford's Product Development senior management formally approved a proposal by the University of Detroit Mercy to transform 125 of Ford's “IC Engine Automotive Engineers” into “Advanced Electric Vehicle Automotive Engineers.” Two months later, the first course of the Advanced Electric Vehicle Program began in Dearborn. UDM's response to Ford's needs (and those of other OEM's and suppliers) was not only at the rate of “academic light speed,” but it involved direct collaboration of Ford's electric vehicle leaders and subject matter experts and the UDM AEV Program faculty.

A simple and rapid immersion type corrosion test has been successfully developed that discriminates corrosion performance in condensers from various suppliers and with differing manufacturing processes. The goal is to develop a test specification that will be included in the Ford corrosion specification for condensers so that condensers received from various suppliers may be evaluated rapidly for their relative corrosion performance to each other. Sections from condensers from Supplier A (tube is silfluxed), Supplier B (tube is zinc arc sprayed), and Supplier C (bare folded tube with no zinc for corrosion protection) were tested in 2% v/v hydrochloric acid for 16, 24 and 48 hours. The results showed that in terms of corrosion performance, zinc arc sprayed Supplier B condenser performed the worst while Supplier C condenser performed the best with Supplier A in between. It was also observed that the fins, and fin-to-tube joints were first to corrode followed by the tube in all cases.

Thermal comfort in automotive seating has been studied and discussed for a long time. The available research, because it is focused on the components, has not produced a model that provides insight into the human-seat system interaction. This work, which represents the beginning of an extensive research program, aims to establish the foundation for such a model. This paper will discuss the key physiological, psychological, and biomechanical factors related to perceptions of thermal comfort in automotive seats. The methodology to establish perceived thermal comfort requirements will also be presented and discussed.

The world urbanization is growing rapidly, bringing many challenges for people to move in dense metropolitan regions. Public transportation is not able to attend the whole demand, and individual transportation modes are struggling with traffic congestion and stringent regulations to reduce its attractiveness, such as the license plate restriction in São Paulo. On the other hand, enablers like smartphones mass penetration, GPS connected services and shared economy have opened space to a whole new range of possible solutions to improve people perception on urban mobility. This work aims to evaluate the modal choice behavior models and understand the success factor of current mobility solutions in the city of São Paulo. The data available through origin/destination researches will be used to validate the models used in this work.

This paper is divided into two parts: Part 1 - Systems engineering fundamentals Part 2 - Engine cooling design from a systems engineering perspective In Part 1, we explain how the task of designing a complex system can be made easier by the application of Systems Engineering principles. (This part is self contained and may be of general interest to those who have no special interest in engine cooling). Systems Engineering provides three key benefits: It facilitates communication: Requirements define the problem, they allow team members to see their own work in context Key information is standardized and made easier to visualize and verify. An “audit trail” is maintained ensuring that important information is documented, and human memory is no longer relied on for important decisions. Translates requirements into design.

Recently, papers have been published purporting to study the effect of rear axle tramp during tread separation events, and its effect on vehicle handling [1, 2]. Based on analysis and physical testing, one paper [1] has put forth a mathematical model which the authors claim allows vehicle designers to select shock damping values during the development process of a vehicle in order to assure that a vehicle will not experience axle tramp during tread separations. In the course of their work, “lumpy” tires (tires with rubber blocks adhered to the tire's tread) were employed to excite the axle tramp resonance, even though this method has been shown not to duplicate the physical mechanisms behind an actual tread belt separation. This paper evaluates the theories postulated in [1] by first analyzing the equations behind the mathematical model presented. The model is then tested to see if it agrees with observed physical testing.

A robust Vehicle Model Architecture (VMA) has been developed to support model-based Vehicle System Control (VSC) design work and, in general, model-based vehicle system engineering activities. It is based on a logical breakdown of the vehicle into key subsystems with supporting bus infrastructure for distribution of signals between subsystems. Primary physical interfaces between the top level subsystems have been defined. Subsystem models that comply with these interfaces can be easily plugged into the architecture for complete simulation of vehicle systems. The VMA encourages model re-use and sharing between project teams and, furthermore, removes key obstacles to sharing of models with suppliers.

Reductions of hardware costs as well as implementations of new innovative functions are the main drivers of today's automotive electronics. Indeed more and more resources are spent on adapting existing solutions to different environments. At the same time, due to the increasing number of networked components, a level of complexity has been reached which is difficult to handle using traditional development processes. The automotive industry addresses this problem through a paradigm shift from a hardware-, component-driven to a requirement- and function-driven development process, and a stringent standardization of infrastructure elements. One central standardization initiative is the AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture (AUTOSAR). AUTOSAR was founded in 2003 by major OEMs and Tier1 suppliers and now includes a large number of automotive, electronics, semiconductor, hard- and software companies.

Static seating bucks have long been used as the only means to subjectively appraise the vehicle interior packages in the vehicle development process. The appraisal results have traditionally been communicated back to the requesting engineers either orally or in a written format. Any design changes have to be made separately after the appraisal is completed. Further, static seating bucks lack the flexibility to accommodate design iterations during the evolution of a vehicle program. The challenge has always been on how to build a seating buck quickly enough to support the changing needs of vehicle programs, especially in the early vehicle development phases. There is always a disconnect between what the seating buck represents and what is in the latest design (CAD), since it takes weeks or months to build a seating buck and by the time it is built the design has already been evolved. There is also no direct feedback from seating buck appraisal to the design in CAD.

In this paper, a novel mixed-integer programming model is developed to optimally assign the die sets to candidate plants to minimize the total costs. The total costs include freight shipping stamped parts to assembly plants, die set movement, outsourcing, and utilization. Therefore, the objective function is weighted multi-criteria and it takes into consideration some of the key constraints in the real-world condition including “must-move die sets”. An optimization tool has been developed that takes several inputs and feeds them as the input to the mathematical model and generates the optimal assignments with the directional costs as the output. The tool has been tested for several plants at Ford and has proved its robustness by saving millions of dollars. The developed tool can easily be applied to other manufacturing systems and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

In the course of developing a body-on-frame vehicle for barrier crash performance, automotive manufacturers must take into account numerous regulatory and corporate requirements. One of the most common barrier crash modes is the perpendicular front barrier crash used to verify compliance to F/CMVSS 208. The frontal rail or “horn” is the primary component that absorbs a significant amount of the vehicle's crash energy. The frontal rail collapse determines the vehicle deceleration. This paper evaluates several frontal horn designs for perpendicular front barrier impacts. Two basic frontal rail architectures are evaluated: a uniform rectangular cross section and a tapered cross section. For a 35 mph (15.65 m/s) impact test condition, a parametric design study was commenced to evaluate the affect of gauges, convolutions, triggers, and initiating holes for a total of eleven configurations.

The business environment is ever changing, several innovations have allowed companies to transcend borderlines and become global entities. While the opportunities are numerous so are the challenges. In this fiercely competitive global marketplace, success requires companies to pay closer attention to supplier relations. The relationship between an automotive industry and its suppliers is an example of it, so the application of CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) superelement technique may improve, in terms of NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harshness), the vehicle development efficiency, without compromising confidentiality directives. Most of NVH requirements must be tracked through Transfer Functions (TFs) analyses at response points located on the Trimmed-Body Finite Element Model (FEM), as for example: Point Mobility, Vibration Transfer Function (VTF) and Acoustic Transfer Function (ATF).

Simulink is a very successful and popular method for modelling and auto-coding embedded automotive features, functions and algorithms. Due to its history of success, university feeder programs, and large third party tool support, it has, in some cases, been applied to areas of the software system where other methods, principles and strategies may provide better options for the software and systems engineers and architects. This paper provides approaches to determine when best to apply UML and when best to apply Simulink to a typical automotive feature. Object oriented software design patterns as well as general guidelines are provided to help in this effort. This paper's intent is not to suggest a replacement for Simulink but to provide the software architects and designers additional options when decomposing high level requirements into reusable software components.

This paper presents a comparison of aqueous corrosion rates in 5% NaCl solution for eight experimental creep-resistant magnesium alloys considered for automotive powertrain applications, as well as three reference alloys (pure magnesium, AM50B and AZ91D). The corrosion rates were measured using the techniques of titration, weight loss, hydrogen evolution, and DC polarization. The corrosion rates measured by these techniques are compared with each other as well as with those obtained with salt-spray testing using ASTM B117. The advantages and disadvantages of the various corrosion measurement techniques are discussed.

Modern vehicles become increasingly software intensive. Software development therefore is critical to the success of the manufacturer to develop state of the art technology. Standards like ISO 26262 recommend requirement-based verification and test cases that are derived from requirements analysis. Agile development uses continuous integration tests which rely on test automation and evaluation. All these drove the development of a new model-based software verification environment. Various aspects had to be taken into account: the test case specification needs to be easily comprehensible and flexible in order to allow testing of different functional variants. The test environment should support different use cases like open-loop or closed-loop testing and has to provide corresponding evaluation methods for continuously changing as well as for discrete signals.

The failure of an A/C system often results in the introduction of contaminants to the A/C system. The sources of the contaminants include debris from damaged components and debris from the surrounding environment. Returning the A/C system to service requires the removal of these contaminants from any reused components. The recommended approach to cleaning contaminated components and systems is to flush with a solvent flushing machine. Previous internal studies have concluded that solvent flushing will remove all contaminants, restoring component and system performance. Many commercial refrigerant recovery and recharge machines include a refrigerant “flush” feature which can flush oil from the system and components with the systems refrigerant. The effectiveness of using the “flush” feature of a refrigerant recovery and recharge machine with an added in-line filter to remove contaminants is investigated.