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A general automotive car is majorly composed of high strength steel (6%), other steel (50%), Iron (15%), Plastics (7%), Aluminum (4%) and others (Rubber, Glass, Textile) about 18%. End-of-life vehicles (ELVs) are a significant source of waste and pollution in the automotive industry. Recycling ELVs, particularly their plastic components, Li-ion batteries, catalytic converters, and critical technology components such as alternators, semi-conductor chips, and high tensile strength steel can reduce their environmental impact and conserve valuable raw materials. The paper conducts a SWOT analysis and a life cycle assessment (LCA) to evaluate the long-term viability and potential of ELV recycling, environmental impact, and carbon footprint.

With strict upcoming regulation norms, it becomes a challenging task for automotive industry to develop highly efficient engine that meets all the regulation requirements. The focus of automakers is to utilize fuel energy in most efficient way and to reduce the energy loss from the engine to improve thermal efficiency. Heat loss to the cooling medium is one of the prime losses inside the combustion chamber. Thermal barrier coating is used to reduce heat losses across combustion chamber surfaces (Piston, head, valves and cylinder liner) as it provides good insulation because of the prominent properties of coating materials like low thermal conductivity, low heat capacity, high melting point etc. This paper presents application and impact of thermal swing coating on thermal efficiency. Thermal swing coating material follows gas temperature quickly throughout the cycle which reduces the temperature difference between gas and coating surface and thus reduces the heat loss.

India is a country of diversity. From North to South, east to west, one can find altogether different culture, religions, spoken languages, foods, weather conditions, people lifestyles, dressing styles etc. This vast diversity of India poses a great challenge in front of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, so as to assimilate all the requirements (of this big nation) in one single car (design). For example, many people in India wear turban (out of their religious beliefs or cultural heritage). So, is it required to keep enough consideration for Turban wearing population in vehicle design? Turban, unlike caps or hats, is something which is tied on the head (not just only kept). It is something which cannot be removed whenever required. So, it can somehow be considered as an integral part of body (as an added head dimension). So, it becomes all the more important to thoroughly understand this aspect & keep a consideration for the same in vehicle design.

Vehicle Hood being the face of a passenger car poses the challenge to meet the regulatory and aesthetic requirements. Urge to make a saleable product makes aesthetics a primary condition. This eventually makes the role of structure optimization much more important. Pedestrian protection- a recent development in the Indian automotive industry, known for dynamics of cost competitive cars, has posed the challenge to make passenger cars meeting the regulation at minimal cost. The paper demonstrates structure optimization of hood and design of peripheral parts for meeting pedestrian protection performance keeping the focus on low cost of ownership. The paper discusses development of an in-house methodology for meeting Headform compliance of a flagship model of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., providing detailed analysis of the procedure followed from introduction stage of regulatory requirement in the project to final validation of the engineering intent.

Electrostatic charge generation in fabric is a common phenomenon. This phenomenon of charge generation & transfer of the same to human body is more in case of fabrics made of polyester yarns due to interface property of the material. The charge generation may result in attraction of dust on the fabric surface, clinginess & may also result in uncomfortable shock to the human body. This situation is attributed to various parameters such as fabric construction, yarn properties, yarn finish & various coating on the yarn. Since, polyester fabric is prime material used in seating; there have been many incidences of rubbing of seat fabric to human body, resulting in generation of static charge. This study focuses on understanding the effect of various fabric parameters on electrostatic charge generation. The study will also look into various potential solutions to reduce the charge generation with their merits and demerits.

Automotive floor carpet serves the purpose of insulating airborne noises like road-tire noise, transmission noise, fuel pump noise etc. Most commonly used automotive floor carpet structure is- molded sound barrier (PE, vinyl etc.) decoupled from the floor pan with an absorber such as felt. With increasing customer expectations and fuel efficiency requirements, the NVH requirements are increasing as well. The only possible way of increasing acoustic performance (Specifically, Sound Transmission Loss, STL) in the mentioned carpet structure is to increase the barrier material. This solution, however, comes at a great weight penalty. Theoretically, increasing the number of decoupled barrier layers greatly enhances the STL performance of an acoustic packaging for same weight. In practice, however, this solution presents problems like- ineffectiveness at lower frequencies, sudden dip in performance at modal frequencies.

Automobile components are usually subjected to complex varying loads. Thus, fatigue failure is a common mode of failure in automobile components. Accurately predicting the fatigue life is the key point for light weight and also reliability design of automobile components. Various life prediction theories are being used in the automotive industry for damage analysis using material S-N curves. However, due to variability in manufacturing, material spec etc. it is difficult to predict the experimental lives using conventional theories. Probability based statistical modeling is prevalent in the industry for life prediction. Probabilistic plots of cycles to failure to constant amplitude loads are plotted and used for prediction purpose. As the component is subjected to varying loads in real world, defining a single parameter i.e. damage would be more relevant compared to loads.

The biggest challenge in vehicle BIW design today is to make a light, cost effective and energy absorbing structure. With the increasing competition as well as increasing customer awareness, today’s vehicle has to satisfy several aesthetic and functional requirements besides the mandatory regulatory requirements. While working on global platform, it is challenging to comply with both pedestrian protection and low speed bumper impact (ECE-R42) and at the same time meeting the styling intent of reducing the front overhang. Pedestrian lower leg compliance demands space between bumper member and bumper, a condition that reduces the space available for energy absorption during low speed impact (ECE-R42). Therefore, reduction in front overhang poses a problem in meeting both the requirements with limited space. This paper outlines vehicle case study in order to optimize the design of Bumper Beam structure, for complying with regulatory requirements while satisfying the styling intent.

The automotive sector is evolving both globally and as well as in India. The Indian customer’s expectations from an automobile are also evolving at fast pace. This is resulting in a continuous shrinkage of the time available for vehicle development. To meet customers’ expectation of superior cabin thermal comfort it is important to predict cabin cooling performance at early stage. This can be achieved through thermal simulation. Existing studies of cabin thermal simulation explained the method of co-simulation. Wherein, Input for the cabin was used a grill air temperature which was obtained from the physical test. It showed good correlation for the cabin inside air temperature with actual test. However, cabin cooling performance does not only depend on cabin structure & layout but also, affected by AC system & its component level performance. AC systems and components were not considered in previous studies.

Interior sound quality is one of the significant factors contributing to the comfort level of the occupants of a passenger car. One of the major reasons for the deterioration of interior sound quality is the booming noise. Booming noise is a low frequency (20Hz∼300Hz) structure borne noise which occurs mainly due to the powertrain excitations or road excitations. Several methods have been developed over time to identify and troubleshoot the causes of booming noise [1]. In this paper an attempt has been made to understand the booming noise by analyzing structural (panels) and acoustic (cavity) modes. Both the structural modes and the acoustic modes of the vehicle cabin were measured experimentally on a B-segment hatchback vehicle using a novel approach and the coupled modes were identified.

Hardened steel is the majorly used raw material for automotive components. In spite of its abundance, its application is limited due to low fatigue life in dynamic loading. Shot peening is one of the identified processes to improve the fatigue life of the ductile steel by inducing the work hardening & surface improvement. The process of shot peening involves the bombardment of shots on the component surface. As the process & technique, the shot size selection plays very important role in the fatigue life improvement as it alters the results substantially. Also during the process, shot size decreases due to the normal wear of the shots after hitting the component surface. As a result, there is always a ratio of various sizes of the shots involved in the process. Therefore it becomes imperative to control the shot size ratio for obtaining the required work hardening & possible fatigue life improvement.

A typical wheel development process involves designing a wheel based on a defined set of criteria and parameters followed by verification on CAE. The virtual testing is followed by bench level and vehicle level testing post which the design is finalized for the wheel. This paper aims to establish the learning which was accomplished for one such development process. The entire wheel development process had to be analyzed from scratch to arrive at a countermeasure for the problem. This paper will not only establish the detailed analysis employed to determine the countermeasure but also highlight its significance for the future development proposals. The paper first establishes the failure which is followed by the detailed analysis to determine the type of failure, impact levels and the basic underlying conditions. This leads to a systematic approach of verification which encompasses the manufacturing process as well as the test methodology.

Valve train system is one major contributor to engine overall friction loss and is approximately 30% of total engine friction at lower speed and approximately 20 % at higher engine speed. Valve spring loads (preload and working) are proportional to friction loss of valve train. To optimizing the valve spring design main requirement is valve train perform it function safely at maximum engine cutoff RPM with minimum preload and working load. Robustness and frictional power loss are contradicting requirement, robustness demand high stiffness spring for better valve jump and bounce performance with dynamic safe valve spring design, on the other hand low frictional power loss demand for use of low stiffness spring. To optimize the valve spring stiffness for meeting both the requirement we need accurate prediction of valve spring in design stage and good correlation with testing data to reduce the number of iterations.