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NVH analysis based on numerical simulations before actual test vehicle is available becomes common process in the automotive industry. Furthermore, the latest work scope is extending even to conceptual study in the very early design stage, beyond traditional numerical simulations simply using 3-D CAD data. In case when reasonable information is provided at this very early vehicle development stage, a better decision on the design concept would be possible, and subsequent design process can be carried out in more efficient manner. The core of this trend is that it allows us to predict vehicle performance at the conceptual design stage without 3-D CAD data, and then, with this prediction, to suggest meaningful design directions for next stage. From this point of view, FRF-Based Substructuring (FBS) methodology has potential to be used as an appropriate tool for this purpose.

For the robust passenger NCAP(New Car Assessment Program) 5star and the stable neck injury performance, a new concept of passenger airbag has been required. Especially, the deployment stability and the vent hole control technology of the passenger airbag can be improved. According to these requirements, the deployment stability technique has been studied and the ‘Active Vent’ technology has been developed. As a result, these technologies have led to achieve the robust NCAP rating and are applied to the production vehicles.

Electric Power Steering (EPS) needs to meet both functional and stability requirements, it plays significant role in controlling vehicle motion. In the meantime, customers emphasizes natural steering feel which can reflect vehicle motion and road surface information while isolate unwanted external disturbances. In general, conventional EPS control algorithms exert assist torque according to driver torque measured from torque sensor, while maintaining stability using stabilizing compensator. However, there exist significant trade-off between steering feel and stability, because the performances of assist torque control and stabilizing compensator are strongly coupled. In this paper a torque feedback control algorithm for EPS system is proposed in order to overcome the trade-off, and to achieve more natural, robust steering feel.

During a new vehicle development process, there are several requirements for side impact test that should be confirmed. One of the requirements is the prevention of door opening during side impact test. Even though there are many causes for door opening problem, this study deals with inertia effect by impact energy. Until now, there have been two classical methods to prevent car door from opening in side impact. One is the increment of the inertia resistance by increasing the mass of the balance weight and the spring force. The other is the application of the blocking lever. Unfortunately, in spite of our efforts, the door opening problem occurs occasionally. Therefore, to improve the problem fundamentally, this paper proposes a new blocking lever mechanism that work similar to ball-point pen structure. The proposed mechanism fixes the blocking lever when the opening directional inertia force is applied to the door outside handle during side crash.

This paper proposes a modeling technique which is able to not only reliably and easily represent the hysteretic characteristics but also analyze the dynamic stress of a taper leaf spring. The flexible multi-body dynamic model of the taper leaf spring is developed by interfacing the finite element model and computation model of the taper leaf spring. Rigid dummy parts are attached at the places where a finite element leaf model is in contact with an adjacent one in order to apply contact model. Friction is defined in the contact model to represent the hysteretic phenomenon of the taper leaf spring. The test of the taper leaf spring is conducted for the validation of the reliability of the flexible multi-body dynamic model of the taper leaf spring developed in this paper. The test is started at an unloaded state with the excitation amplitude of 1∼2mm/sec and frequency of 132mm. First, the simulation is conducted with the same condition as the test.

The software must be verified and optimized from time to time to ensure system performance quality from the development process. Because the later you discover performance issues, the greater the cost of performance improvements, along with the extent to which they are fixed in the source code. In particular, performance problems due to poor system design should be identified and corrected as soon as possible. Also, as development progresses, source code added for new features and modified by bugs can potentially increase system resource usage or worsen responsiveness. Therefore, the development process needs to periodically measure, analyze, and improve system performance. This paper introduces the system-wide performance analyzer and explains how to use it to measure and analyze the performance of the infotainment system for performance management and improvement.

The purpose of this study is to develop a dynamic model that can accurately predict the motion of the door handle and counterweight during side impact crash tests. The door locking system, mainly composed of the door outside handle and door latch, is theoretically modeled, and it is assumed that the door outer panel can rotate and translate in all three directions during a side impact crash. Additionally, the numerical results are compared with real crash video footage, and satisfactory qualitative agreement is found. Finally, the simplified test rig that efficiently reflects the real crash test is introduced, and its operation is analyzed.

Road friction estimation algorithms had been studied for many years because it is very important factor for safety control and fuel efficiency of vehicle. But traditional solutions are hard to adapt in automotive industry because their performance is not sufficient enough and expensive to implement. Therefore, this paper proposes a road friction estimation algorithm based on a trained artificial neural-network which is low cost and robust. The suggested method doesn’t need expensive additional sensors such as optical or lidar sensor, also it shows better performance in real car environment compared to other algorithms based on vehicle dynamics. In this paper, we would describe this algorithm in detail and analyze the test results evaluated in real road conditions.

This Study describes about the development of new concept' rear wheel guards for the reduction of Road Noise in the passenger vehicles. The new wheel guards are proposed by various frequency chamber concept and different textile layers concept. Two wheel guards were verified by small cabin resonance and vehicle tests. Through new developing process without vehicle test, Result of road noise will be expected if this concepts and materials of wheel guard are applied into automotive vehicle. As this concept consider tire radiation noise frequency and multilayers sound control multilayers, 2 concepts reduced road noise from 0.5 to 1.0dB. The proposed method of part reverberant absorption is similar to results of vehicle tests by part absorption index. Furthermore, optimization of frequency band in wheel guards will reduce more 0.5 dB noises. As a result of the application of Aimed Helmholtz and Multilayers concept, this paper classifies reduction of the road noise, cost and weights.

‘Active safety systems’ are actively being developed to prevent collisions. The integration of ‘active safety systems’ and traditional ‘passive safety systems’ such as seatbelt and airbags is an important issue. The ‘Integrated safety’ performance is that comprehensively controls the performance of ‘active’ and ‘passive’ safety systems to reduce occupant injuries. To develop ‘integrated safety’ performance, it is important to develop crash scenarios for autonomous vehicles. This study is about the development of ‘Estimation Tool of Occupant Injury Risk’ for deriving risk integrated safety scenarios focused on occupant injury. The results of random traffic simulation using ‘Virtual Prototype’ were used to select parameters, and ‘MADYMO Equivalent Simplified Vehicle Crash Analysis Model’ was used to derive F-D characteristics for each vehicle collision condition.

This paper focuses on the optimization of the cross-section of a panel type impact door beam. The key parameters of the cross-section of the beam were artificially changed by using a geometry morphing tool FCM (Fast Concept Modeler), which is plugged in to CATIA. Then, the metamodel of FE (Finite Element) analysis results was created and optimized using LS-OPT. The ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) analysis of results was carried out to find the factor of weight reduction. Finally, a new cross section concept was proposed to overcome the limitation of old structure. The optimization was carried out for the beam with the final cross-section to have 10 % or more reduction in total weight.

The multi-function drive plate used for a high performance engine was developed by optimizing its structure, material and design features. To do so, the investigation of the load characteristics was done in order to increase FEA reliability. DFSS was utilized for optimizing the design features and defining the effect of geometric parameters on the durability. The durability of the optimized drive plate was verified by comparing the FEA and test results with other drive plates which were already verified. Finally, the real powertrain test was done to confirm its durability for a high performance engine.

This paper describes the optimal design process of the steering column system and the supporting system. At the initial concept stage of development process, a design guide is proposed to obtain sufficient stiffness of the steering system while reducing idle vibration sensitivity of the system. Case studies on resonance isolation are summarized, in which separated vibration modes among systems by applying Vibration Mode Map at the initial stage of design process. This study also makes it possible to provide design guideline for optimal dynamic damper system using CAE (computer aided engineering) analysis. The damper FE (finite element) model is added to vehicle model to analyze the relation between the frequency and the sensitivity of steering column system. This analysis methodology enables target performance achievement in early design stage and reduction of damper tuning activity after proto car test stage.

Various optimization schemes have successfully been utilized to design mounting brackets of chassis components, especially suspension systems, in the large commercial vehicle development process. Depending on the design status, different optimization schemes, i.e. size, topology, and shape, are applied. There are two key elements that determine types of optimization schemes used, which are design freedom and available analysis time. First, in a case that the design is already frozen near the mass production, so that only minimal design change and time is allowed, the size optimization is attempted. Second, in the middle of the design process where relatively more room for the change is available, the topology optimization is adequate to carry out, based on the basic CAD model.

The characteristics of vibration in the seat system are presented using the analysis of Finite Element Method (FEM). The Noise, Vibration and Harshness (NVH) performance should be managed from the viewpoint of tactile, acoustic and visual sense. Tactile response is the response of sub-systems, which is induced when the human body contacts steering wheel, footrest and seats. The seat modeling techniques have been developed and correlated with the modal test. The main modes in the seat system were analyzed and these seat modes were used to set the mode map (seat target) at the stage of full vehicle level. The sensitive region on seat mountings was defined through the design sensitivity analysis. Weight down design studies were performed.

In the early stages of vehicle development, it is critical to establish performance goals for the major systems. The fundamental modes of body and chassis frames are typically assessed using FE models that are discretized using shell elements. However, the use of the shell-based FE method is problematic in terms of fast analysis and quick decision-making, especially during the concept phase of a vehicle design because it takes much time and effort for detailed modeling. To overcome this weakness, a one-dimensional (1D) method based on beam elements has been extensively studied over several decades, but it was not successful because of low accuracy for thin-walled beam structures. This investigation proposes a 1D method based on thin-walled beam theory with comparable accuracy to shell models. Most body pillars and chassis frame members are composed of thin-walled beam structures because of the high stiffness-to-mass ratio of thin-walled cross sections.

Bad weather conditions such as torrential rain, heavy snow, and thick fog frequently occur worldwide. Vehicle accidents in such bad weather conditions account for a significant portion of all vehicle accidents, and the level of damage is relatively severe compared to other accidents that occur in clear weather. This paper analyzes the driver's driving stability in bad weather conditions, which has such a significant meaning, in various ways through experiments on the inconvenience experienced by the driver. In this study, three levels of bad weather conditions were implemented in a driving simulator environment to evaluate driver inconvenience for six activities. Through driving experiment, quantitative bio-signals and vehicle signals were analyzed in each weather condition. The SD survey was used to assess the driver's inconvenience level for activities performed while driving and analyze the ranking of inconvenience.

With the recent development of technologies for interpreting vibration and noise of vehicles, it has become possible for carmakers to reduce idle vibration and driving noise in the phase of preceding development. Thus, the issue of noise generation is drawing keen attention from production of prototype car through mass-production development. J. D. Power has surveyed the levels of customer satisfaction with all vehicles sold in the U.S. market and released the Initial Quality Study (IQS) index. As a growing number of emotional quality-related items are added to the IQS evaluation index, it is necessary to secure a sufficiently high quality level of low-frequency speaker sound against rattle noise. It is required to make a preceding review on the package tray panel, which is located at the bottom of the rear glass where the woofer speakers of a passenger sedan are installed, the door module panel in which the door speakers are built.

The Design For Six Sigma (DFSS) process consists of four phases, identification & definition of opportunity, concept development, design optimization, and design verification. In the phase of concept development, TRIZ (Russian acronym for Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) is useful for creating new ideas from the present ideas, which includes the trimming strategy, the antidote strategy, and the picket fence strategy. In this paper, systems of a vehicle such as Variable Compression Ratio (VCR) engine, windshield wiper blade, and Continuously Variable Valve Actuation (CVVA) of engine, are selected and new concepts for each system are created by applying the previously mentioned three strategies. FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis), the latter part in the phase of concept development in DFSS, is conducted for newly generated concepts of systems that are mentioned above. As a result of FMEA, it is found that the wind lift of the wiper blade can be a serious problem.

Generally, the HVAC system of a vehicle is composed of Blower unit assembly and Heater unit assembly, and is located on the driver’s side of the dash panel. However, electric vehicles have far fewer parts than conventional internal combustion engine vehicles, so electric vehicles have large space in the engine room. This allows HVAC, which occupies large volume in the interior side, to be pushed in the direction of the engine room altogether, or by placing a part inside the engine room to make a slim cockpit and expand the interior space. However, this new structure, called the Split HVAC System, is mounted through the dash, allowing noise to pass through relatively easily. Since this adversely affects the NVH of an electric vehicle, it needs to be developed in terms of noise transmission. Therefore, in this paper, a study was conducted to predict the sound transmission loss of Split HVAC through an analytical method.