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Electromagnetic valve (EMV) actuation system is a new technology for the improvement of fuel efficiency and the reduction of emissions in SI engines. It can provide more flexibility in valve event control compared to conventional variable valve actuation devices. However, a more powerful and efficient actuator design is needed for this technology to be applied in mass production engines. This paper presents the effects of design and operating parameters on the thermal, static and dynamic performances of the actuator. The finite element method (FEM) and computer simulation models are used in predicting the solenoid forces, dynamic characteristics and thermal characteristics of the actuator. Effect of design parameters and operating environment on the actuator performance were verified before making prototypes using the analytical models. To verify the accuracy of the simulation model, experimental study is also carried out on a prototype actuator.

This paper presents a novel method predicting the variation of sound quality of interior noise depending on the change of the proprieties of absorption materials. At the first, the model predicting the interior noise corresponding to the change of the absorption material in engine room is proposed. Secondly the index to estimate the sound quality of the predicted sound is developed. Thirdly the experimental work has been conducted with seven different materials and validated the newly developed index. Finally, this index is applied for the optimization of absorption material to improve the sound quality of interior noise in a passenger car.

Recently the interior sound is actively generated by the active sound design (ASD) device in a passenger car. Therefore, the objective evaluation method for the sound quality of actively designed sounds is required. In previous research, the sound quality of interior sound has been presented with powerful and pleasant for the existing passenger car. This paper presents a novel approach method for the objective evaluation of powerfulness and pleasantness of actively designed interior sound. The powerfulness has been evaluated based on the degreed of modulation and a quantity of low frequency booming of the sound in the paper. On the other hand, the pleasantness is evaluated based on the slope ratio of harmonic orders per octave in frequency domain. These evaluation methods are successfully applied to the objective evaluation of luxury passenger car.

A study for improving the resistance to fretting corrosion of SCr 420 pinion gear was conducted. Fretting is the damage to contacting surfaces experiencing slight relative reciprocating sliding motion of low amplitude. Fretting corrosion is the fretting damage to unlubricated contacting surfaces accompanied by corrosion, mostly oxidation that occurs if the fretting occurs in air. Two kinds of conventional heat treatment and a newly designed one suggested for improving the resistance to the fretting corrosion of pinion gear were compared each other to find out what is the main factor for generating fretting corrosion phenomenon. Increased carbon potential at both the heating and diffusing zone and reduced time of tempering was found out to be a solution for improving the resistance to fretting corrosion of forged and heat treated gear steel. On the contrary, modified carbo-nitriding using ammonia gas has been getting worse the fretting corrosion problem.

This paper presents a systematic approach to interior engine sound design for enhancing sound character of car interior sound effectively. Nowadays an active noise control technology is widely used in vehicle industry. Particularly, an active sound design (ASD) technique using vehicle’s audio system for controlling interior sound due to powertrain has become a general method to improve sound quality or character. The ASD system using speakers has the advantage of creating various sounds relatively easy. In this study, the novel systematic approach is proposed to guide the efficient design of powerful and pleasant acceleration sound by order spectrum analysis. At first, primary attributes of powerful and pleasant sound were analyzed and sound concept was derived. Secondly, the optimal linearity and the level envelope of firing order were derived by subjective evaluation.

This study presents a novel active vibration control (AVC) system on motor driven power steering (MDPS) to reduce interior noise reduction caused by operating the MDPS in an electric vehicle. MDPS is electronic power steering (EPS). The MDPS attached to the rack gear of power steering system is called R-MDPS. Operating of the R-MDPS generates a structural vibration of R-MDPS, and the vibration is transmitted to car body through mounts of car subframe. The vibrating body of car becomes a monopole and dipole sources of vibroacoustic noise generated inside car. This vibracoustic noise is a structure borne noise and makes passenger annoyance. To reduce interior noise inside a car directly, active noise control (ANC) has been used as active method and is a useful method for active cancellation of the low frequency noises less than 400Hz.

This paper presents the novel active vibration control (AVC) system that controls vehicle body vibration to reduce the structural borne road noise. As a result of vehicle noise testing in an electric vehicle, the predominant frequency of vehicle body vibration that worsens interior noise is in the range of 150-250Hz. Such vibration in that frequency range, commonly masked in engine vibrations, are hard to neglect for electric vehicles. The vibration source of that frequency is the resonance of tire cavity mode. Resonator or absorption material has been applied inside the tire for the control of cavity noise as a passive method. They require an increment of weight and cost. Therefore, a novel method is necessary. The vibration amplified by resonance of cavity mode is transferred to the vehicle body throughout the suspension system. To reduce the vibration, AVC system is applied to the suspension mount.

This research aims to develop an inverse control method capable of adaptively simulating dynamic models of car subsystems in the rig-test condition. Accurate simulation of the actual vibration conditions is one of the most crucial factors in realizing reliable rig-test platforms. However, most typical rig tests are conducted under simple random or harmonic sweep conditions. Moreover, the conventional test methods are hard to directly adapt to the actual vibration conditions when switching the dynamic characteristics of the subsystem in the rig test. In the present work, we developed an inverse controller to adaptively control the vibration exciter referring to the target vibration signal. An adaptive LMS filter, employed for the control algorithm, updated the filter weights in real time by referring to the target and the measured acceleration signals.

In the view point of driving safety, the crosswind sensitivity of a vehicle becomes more important, as the driving speed in highway gets higher in these days. The sensitivity of a vehicle to crosswind depends on many factors, including the design of the suspension and aerodynamics of the body, etc. However, the knowledge about this phenomenon has still to be improved, in order to develop vehicle with optimum characteristics for crosswind stability. In this research, the physics behind the sensitivity of a vehicle is discussed in detail through various kinds of virtual test using computer aided engineering (CAE) simulation scheme. In the first, a reliable simulation model for vehicle, driver, wind generator and interactions among them is built. This simulation model is verified by comparison with test results of real vehicle. Then, the sensitivity analysis is carried out to find out the most influential design parameters.

A liquid phase LPG injection (LPLi) system has been considered as one of the next generation fuel supply system, since it has a very strong potential to accomplish the higher power, higher efficiency, and lower emission characteristics than the mixer type that is classified as a second generation technology, whereas the LPLi system is classified as a third generation technology. However, when a liquid LPG fuel is injected into the inlet duct of an engine, a large quantity of heat is extracted due to its high latent heat of evaporation. This leads the moisture in the air to freeze around the nozzle exit, which is called icing phenomenon. It may cause damage to the outlet nozzle of an injector or inlet valve seat. In this work, the experimental investigation of the icing phenomenon was carried out. The results showed that humidity of air rather than the temperature of air in the inlet duct mainly controlled the icing process.

Luxury sound is one of the most important sound qualities in a premium passenger car. Previous work has shown that, because of the effects of many different interior sounds, it is difficult to evaluate the luxury sound objectively by using only the A-weighted sound pressure level. In this paper, the characteristics of such sound were first investigated by a systematic approach and a new objective evaluation method for luxury sound-the luxury sound quality index--which was developed by the systematic combination of the seven major interior sound quality indexes based on path analysis. The seven major sounds inside a passenger car were selected by a basic investigation evaluated by the members of a luxury automotive club. Seven major interior sound quality indexes were developed by using sound metrics, which are the psychoacoustic parameters, and the multiple regression method used for the modeling of the correlation between objective and subjective evaluation.

The filtered-x LMS (FX-LMS) algorithm has been applied to the active noise control (ANC) system in an acoustic duct. This algorithm is designed based on the FIR (finite impulse response) filter, but it has a slow convergence problem because of a large number of zero coefficients. In order to improve the convergence performance, the step size of the LMS algorithm was modified from fixed to variable. However, this algorithm is still not suitable for the ANC system of a short acoustic duct since the reference signal is affected by the backward acoustic wave propagated from a secondary source. Therefore, the recursive filtered-u LMS algorithm (FU-LMS) based on infinite impulse response (IIR) is developed by considering the backward acoustic propagation. This algorithm, unfortunately, generally has a stability problem. The stability problem was improved by using an error smoothing filter.

Driveshafts are one of the most important components in power-train system in vehicle as it transfer torque generated from engine to wheels in high speeds. As a driveshaft is in rotating condition vibration problems can be observed by resonance or external force. The generated vibration problems in vehicles cause discomfort to drivers whenever they are driving. To solve these problems, there have been many attempts to control such generated vibration in vehicle. In this study, vibration control system for driveshaft has been proposed to reduce the generated vibration. The smart damper for the system is designed considering to be implemented in driveshaft with quick response and a compact size. The damper is consists of electromagnets so it can response relatively quickly compared to other damping system. When a driveshaft reaches to its natural frequency, vibration control system with the damper is activated to minimize the vibration as it shifts its natural frequency region.

As a part of the global efforts to reduce CO2 emission, studies are in progress to derive regulation measures for CO2 emission from heavy-duty vehicles. Thus, identification of emission characteristics of CO2 for heavy-duty vehicle is required and test driving cycle for this would be necessary. Before developing a test driving cycle to identify the emission characteristics of CO2, selection of test subject vehicles and actual road test was carried out. Through this, road drive characteristics per diverse vehicle type and emission levels of CO2 were identified. Correlations between the currently used cycles of each country and the actual road were analyzed and the cycle most similar to the actual road situations was selected among various countries' cycles to verify whether its easy use was possible for the actual tests. The test driving cycle selected after comparison with actual road situations was modified so as to enable actual tests for all heavy-duty vehicles.

Since the emission gap of nitrogen oxides between the measurements in the indoor emission certification test and the driving in real road conditions has revealed to be significant, the RDE(Real Driving Emissions) regulations of exhaust emissions in real road driving in Europe were adopted in 2017 at the Euro 6d-TEMP stage and gradually strengthened thereafter. Many countries including Korea are applying equivalent and similar regulations. In order to identify whether vehicles in use comply with the emission standards within the exhaust emissions warranty period, it is necessary to add real road tests to ongoing in-use inspections. Thus, a study on the development of an indoor test cycle in order to use for in-use inspection instead of an real road test becomes required while satisfying RDE criteria.

TPO (thermoplastic olefin) composite for rear bumper back beams was developed. In this study, the composition of PP (polypropylene), rubber and mineral fillers was optimized to minimize the intrusion and the failure after crash. The optimization of the composition was achieved using the mixture design of experiments. The physical properties of TPO composites with various compositions were investigated and the effect of each material on the crash performance of back beam was studied through CAE (computer-aided engineering). The back beams made of the optimized TPO composite for a subcompact car were prepared for the ECE 42 crash test and the TPO-based back beam showed even better performance than conventional PC/PBT-based counterpart. In addition, the newly developed composite has delivered a 15 ~ 40% cost saving and 4 ~ 10% weight reduction versus conventional PC/PBT and GMT (glass mat-reinforced thermoplastic).

Studies of driving cycles for buses have been published in a number of papers, e.g., the Central Business District (CBD) and New York Bus (NY Bus) driving cycles. Such studies, however, cannot represent the actual driving environment of Seoul because of differences in road conditions and the volume of traffic. Thus, this study presents the development of a driving cycle for the city bus system of Seoul, the capital city of Korea. A representative route is selected by means of a statistical analysis of the city bus routes in Seoul. Experiments are performed to measure velocity, road grade, engine speed, load conditions, gear-shift patterns, and vehicle acceleration in actual Seoul traffic. A simulation model is developed to evaluate a driving cycle on the basis of the measured data obtained. The coupling effect between velocity and acceleration is analyzed, as well as the coupling effect between road grade and vehicle acceleration.

As the spread of electric vehicles increases, tests to measure the driving distance on a single charge, which takes about 6 hours or more to completely discharge the battery, have become necessary. There is also a need to conduct tests using indoor alternative modes, such as real driving emissions (RDE) tests, which take about two hours. These tests can be said to be very harsh working environments because they take long periods of time on chassis dynamometer, and sometimes low-temperature tests are also required. In this study, basic research was conducted to enable a driving robot to perform long-term automobile performance tests on behalf of humans indoors using a chassis dynamometer. The final development goal is to develop a driving pedal robot that has an automatic calibration function suitable for various vehicles and has a shorter installation time than driving robots in the existing market.

Tire tread pattern noise is a major source of road noise generated by motor vehicles. Recently, noise control technology has been developing, and low-noise motor vehicles, such as electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles, have been commercialized. The importance of low-noise tires has increased since regulations R117 for tire noise and R51.03 for motor vehicle noise have been strengthened. To evaluate the tire noise in the development stage of motor vehicles, finished products of tires are required; hence, financial and time costs should be invested. Therefore, it is highly useful to predict tire noise levels in the early stages. Recently, a technology to predict the tire pattern noise using a supervised training method of artificial neural network (ANN) has been developed. The tire tread depth is estimated using the shading of the full image of the actual tire, and the leading edge of the contact patch is calculated using tire contact patch images.

To properly respond to demands to reduce national energy consumption and meet greenhouse gas emission targets based on environment policy, the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy of Korea formed a research consortium consisting of government agencies and academic and research institutions to establish the first fuel efficiency standards for medium- and heavy-duty (MHD) commercial vehicles. The standards are expected to be introduced in 2017 as Phase 1 of the plan and will regulate trucks with a gross vehicle weight in excess of 3.5 tons and buses with a carrying capacity of more than 16 persons. Most MHD commercial vehicles are custom-made and manufactured in diversified small-quantity batch production systems for commercial or public use, resulting in difficulties in utilizing mandatory vehicle tests for fuel efficiency evaluations.