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Foundry industries are very much familiar and rich experience of producing ferrous castings mainly Flake Graphite (FG) and Spheroidal Graphite (SG) cast iron. Grey cast iron material is mainly used for dampening applications and spheroidal graphite cast iron is used in structural applications wherein high strength and moderate ductility is necessary to meet the functional requirements. However, both types of cast iron grades are very much suitable in terms of manufacturing in an economical way. Those grades are commercially available and being consumed in various industries like automotive, agriculture etc, High strength SG Iron grades also being manufactured by modifying the alloying elements with copper, chromium, manganese andcobalt. but it has its own limitation of reduction in elongation when moving from low to high strength SG iron material. To overcome this limitation a new cast iron developed by modifying the chemical composition.

Range anxiety is one of the major factors to be dealt with for increasing penetration of EVs in current Automotive market. The major reasons for range anxiety for customers are sparse charging infrastructure availability, limited range of Electric vehicles and range uncertainty due to diverse real-world usage conditions. The uncertainty in real world range can be reduced by increasing the correlation between the testing condition during vehicle development and real-world customer usage condition. This paper illustrates a more accurate test methodology development to derive the real-world range in electric vehicles with experimental validation and system level analysis. A test matrix is developed considering several variables influencing vehicle range like different routes, drive modes, Regeneration levels, customer drive behavior, time of drive, locations, ambient conditions etc.

The input shafts are conventionally developed through Hot forging route. Considering upcoming new technologies the same part was developed through cold forging route which resulting in better Mechanical properties than existing hot forging process. It has added benefit of cost as well as environmental friendly. Generally, the part like Input shaft which having gear teeth, splines etc., will be manufactured through Hot forging process due to degree of deformation, availability of press capacity, diameter variations etc., This process consumes more energy in terms of electricity for heating the bar and also creates pollution to the atmosphere. Automotive input shaft design modified to accommodate cold forging process route to develop the shaft with press capacity of 2500T which gives considerable benefit in terms of mechanical and metallurgical Properties, close dimensional tolerances, less machining time, higher material yield when compared to hot forging and metal cutting operation.

Melatonin, otherwise popularly known as the “sleep hormone” is known to govern the human circadian rhythms. Current studies indicate that the generation of melatonin is impacted by the ambient light. The natural sleep inducing behavior during night and in darkness, is also due to the same phenomenon. Studies have shown that light of particular wavelengths in the visible spectrum have a higher effect on the amount of melatonin secreted by the human body. Blue light in the wavelengths of around 468 nm is known to inhibit the melatonin secretion, the most. This branch of science known as photobiology is in its nascent stage and is a matter of research pursued by neurologists, endocrinologists and other lighting researchers. Photobiology has several potential applications in the automotive industry, the principal one being driver drowsiness prevention.

This paper deals with an analytical method to calculate the press-fit tolerance and fits between gears and shaft for automotive applications. The relative interferences increase sharply in the small diameter range, therefore one must be especially careful when designing small diameter joints. The strength of press-fit depends on the amount of relative interference; extreme interference leads to excessive contact stresses between the gear and shaft eventually leading to failure. Too little interference leads to slippage of gear on the shaft. In the press fit connection a shaft's spline rolling operation and gear internal broaching is eliminated. It is more economical than a conventional spline connection. Press fit connections are used in various transmission between a shaft and a gear. They are used in 6 speed transmission to 9-speed transmission for (German based Vehicle Manufacturer) heavy and light commercial vehicle company.

Plastics are prone to photo oxidative and thermal oxidative degradation under usage conditions due to their chemical nature. From sustainability and cost standpoint, there is an increasing focus on Mold-In-Color (MIC) plastic materials. Simultaneously customer’s expectations on the perceived quality of these MIC parts has been increasing with attractive color and glossy appearance. A study was conducted to analyze the product quality and durability aspects over a prolonged exposure to accelerated weathering condition. Material selected for this study were injection molded specimens of ABS and PC-ABS used in automotive passenger vehicles. Comparative analysis was conducted before and after weathering exposure at defined intervals by using Fourier Transform infra-red spectrometer (FTIR), differential scanning colorimetry (DSC), universal testing machine (UTM), Izod impact tester and microscope to understand the impact on their chemical and mechanical properties.

The objective of this paper is to minimize occupant injuries in offset frontal crash with pulse characterization, by keeping vehicle front crush space & occupant survival space constant. Crash pulse characterization greatly simplifies the representation of crash pulse time histories. The parameters used to characterize the crash pulse are velocity change, time & value of dynamic crush, and zero cross-over time. The crash pulse slope, peaks, average values at discrete time intervals have significant role on occupant injuries. Vehicle crash pulse of different trends have different impact on occupant injury. The intension of crash pulse characterization study is to come out with one particular crash pulse which shows minimum occupant injuries. This study will have significant impact in terms of front loading on crash development of vehicle.

The ECE R-14, AIS015 safety standard specifies the requirements of the safety belt anchorages namely, minimum numbers, their locations, static strength to reduce the possibility of their failure during accidental crashes for effective occupant restraint and the test procedures. This standard applies to the anchorages of safety belts for adult occupants of forward facing or rearward facing seats in vehicles of categories M and N. ECE R14 ensures the passenger safety during sudden acceleration/retardation and accidents. Early simulations revealed some structural short falls that demanded cabin improvements in order to fulfill regulation requirements for the seal belt anchorage test. This paper describes the innovative design modifications done to meet the seat belt anchorage test. Good correlation with the test is achieved in terms of deformations. These simulation methods helped in reducing the number of intermediate physical tests during the design process.

With increasing road traffic and pollution, it becomes responsibility for all OEM to increase fuel efficiency and reduce carbon footprint. Most effective way to do so is to reduce weight of the vehicle and more use of ecofriendly recyclable material. With this objective we have come up with Light weight, cost effective sustainable design solution for Injection moulded RQT (Rear quarter trim). It is an interior plastic component mounted in the III row of the vehicle. This is required to ensure inside enhanced aesthetic look of the vehicle and comfort for 3rd row passengers. Conventionally RQT of vehicle with 3rd row seating is made using plastic material (PP TD 20). With the use of plastic moulded RQT there is a significant weight addition of around 6 kg per vehicle along with reduced cabin space, huge investment and development time impact.

Utility or Off-road vehicles are characterized with their higher ground clearances. Higher ground clearance of vehicle requires the vehicle to have footsteps for easy entry and exit of passengers from the vehicle. A typical foot step construction consists of structural steel brackets with an Aluminum or plastic top panel. Conventional steel construction is heavier to meet weight bearing capacity and durability requirements. Our objective of this work is to explore lightweight materials which can meet these performance requirements with a lighter construction. We chose to study the continuous glass fiber reinforced plastic as an alternative to the metal construction.

In driving, Steering is the input motion to the vehicle. The driver uses steering input to change the direction of the vehicle. During Parking or U turn bends the Steering is locked and later released to follow the desired path. Steering return ability is defined as the ratio of difference between steering wheel position at lock condition and steering wheel angle after 3 seconds of release to the steering wheel angle at lock condition. Having proper steering return ability characteristics has an important effect on vehicle steering characteristics. In this study, a full vehicle ADAMS model is prepared, and virtual steering return ability have been simulated in ADAMS/CAR for a Pickup truck vehicle. Simulated responses in the steering wheel angle have been validated by comparison with measurements. A Design of Experiment study is setup and Iterations are carried out to find the effect of Hard points and friction parameters.

With the increase in number of vehicles and amount of traffic, safety has come out to be a big concern in vehicle’s dynamic stability. There are certain system’s limits beyond which if a vehicle is pushed it may become unstable. One of the major areas of research in vehicle dynamics control has been lateral velocity and yaw rate control. With this, situations like vehicle spinning, oversteer, understeer etc. can be addressed. The challenge for the next generations of vehicle control is the integration of the available actuators into a unique holistic control concept. This paper presents the driver reference generator developed for the Integrated Vehicle Dynamics Control concept. The driver reference generator processes the driver inputs to determine the target vehicle behavior. The generation of reference behavior is a key factor for the integrated control design. The driver reference generation is validated on a real vehicle.

Mechanical and wear properties of Al alloyed gray cast iron (0.5% and 1.0%) were compared with that of Mo (1.0%) and Cu (0.77%) alloyed gray cast iron in this investigation. All the alloys showed pearlitic microstructure. The graphite morphology varied due to varying chemistry. The fracture surface showed “cabbage” like dimpled morphology indicating the predominant ductile fracture. It was found that the Mo containing cast iron show 25 to 30% higher strength and 6 to 7 times better wear resistance compared to Al containing cast irons. The worn surface showed oxide formation during sliding.

Suspension plays a crucial role in stabilizing, comfort and performance of a vehicle. During vehicle braking operation, load transfer happens from rear axle to front axle resulting in shifting of vehicle’s center of gravity towards vehicle front for a momentarily duration which is called diving. This phenomenon leads to dropping of traction at rear wheel end resulting in lifting of rear axle with front wheel as pivot. This causes increase in front to rear weight ratio of vehicle system and compromising driver safety due to skidding and locking of rear wheel-end. To minimize this phenomenon’s affect, optimum anti-dive suspension geometry is used to have better rear wheel end traction resulting in improved braking stability.

Tensile Testing is one of the most used and highly reliable method of mechanical testing to evaluate the tensile properties of the material. However, there is a large scope for discussing the behavior of the metals based on the direction of rolling and the tensile specimen size used for testing. This paper discusses the variation observed in the tensile values along the direction of rolling and traverse to the direction of rolling for S460MC. It also evaluates the variation observed in the values based on the various gauge lengths (GL) commonly used in testing as per international standards (80mm, 50mm and 25mm GL). It is observed that perpendicular to the direction of rolling, the Yield and Tensile strength of the material increase marginally while the Elongation percentage (%E) decreases by a small margin irrespective of the gauge length taken into consideration.

Automotive steel wheel is a critical component for human safety. For validating steel wheel various tests will be performed at component and vehicle level. Cornering test performed at vehicle level is one of the tests, where wheel will be validated for high cornering loads. Cornering test performed at vehicle level consists of three different events i.e., rotations of vehicle in track1, rotations of vehicle track 2 and rotations of vehicle in track3. As wheel will experience different loading in each of the events of cornering test, correlating the virtual Finite Element Analysis (FEA) with physical test is quite challenging. If in FEA we can predict the damage and life very near to the physical validation, we can create a safe wheel for high cornering loads without any test concerns. Vent hole shape and Hat depth are two important aspects in wheel disc design. Vent hole shape and size will influence the heat dissipation of braking.

The brass synchronizers are not resistant to abusive conditions of gearbox operations, but they are very durable and cheap when used on their favorable material property working limit. The main failure which can occur in the gearbox due to the synchronizer is crash noise. During gear shifting the gear crash will create high discomfort for the driver and must apply high force to change the gears. The main factors which contribute to the crash phenomenon are the insufficient coefficient of friction, high drag in the system, and high wear rate of the synchronizer rings before the intended design life of the synchronizer. The brass synchronizers were tested on the SSP-180, ZF synchronizer test rig to know the effect of the synchronizer performance parameters like the coefficient of friction, sleeve force, slipping time as well as durability parameters like wear rate when the operating temperature of the oil is changed.

In most cases, the properties of a metal are evaluated in their as rolled condition, prior to any work hardening or bake hardening. But in the Automotive World, these steels get work hardened during the forming process and bake hardened in the paint shop. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the variations in the performance of Dual Phase (DP) steels and understand the most optimized method of testing and property generation. This method can then be used to extrapolate to real automotive components. Dual Phase Steels or DP Steels contain a mixture of Ferrite & Martensite from which they derive their name. They are a part of the advanced high strength and ultra-high strength steels steel family according to World Auto Steels. The Ferrite phase, with its iron content contributes to the material displaying an increased level of ductility whilst, the martensitic phase provides the steel with increased mechanical strength.

Fuel efficiency is critical aspect for commercial vehicles as fuel is major part of operational costs. To complicate scenario further, fuel efficiency testing, unlike in passenger cars is more time consuming and laborious. Thus, to save on development cost and save time in actual testing, simulations plays crucial role. Typically, actual vehicle speed and gear usage is captured using reference vehicle in desired route and used it for simulation of target vehicle. Limitation to this approach is captured duty cycle is specific to powertrain and driver behavior of reference vehicle. Any change in powertrain or vehicle resistance or driver of target vehicle will alter duty cycle and hence duty cycle of reference vehicle is no more valid for simulation assessment. This paper demonstrates approach which uses combination of tools to address this challenge. Simulation approach proposed here have three parts.

Weight reduction in automotive applications have led to the processing of thermoplastic polymers by foam injection molding. The density of the foamed polymer can be reduced up to 20%. Whilst, work has been reported on the weight reduction of the foamed polymer by using different types of blowing agent technologies, there has been limited studies in the areas of the sound transmission loss and sound attenuation properties of these materials. The present study is intended to understand the effect of chemical blowing agent (CBA) on the properties of polypropylene. The molded specimens were characterized using density, Differential scanning colorimetry (DSC), Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy (FT-IR) and sound transmission loss (STL) measurements. Specimens were also tested for tensile properties, flexural properties, Izod impact strength and Heat deflection temperature (HDT) as per standard test protocol.