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In the modern automobile scenario in developing countries, customers are getting more meticulous and market more competitive. Now even the budget vehicle customer expects desirable vehicle performance in specific use cases of the vehicle that were previously not focused by designers. Hence, the focus on perceived quality challenges automobile engineers to go the extra mile when it comes to the cost-effective design of parts that are tangible to the customer. A vehicle's cowl cover is one such exterior component. The primary functions of this part are to provide air intake opening for the HVAC system and cover the components like wiper motor. The aesthetic function is to cover the gaps between windshield, hood, and fender as seamlessly as possible. A specific role of cowl cover, which calls for a designer's attention, is its load-bearing capability.

Three-cylinder Engine without balancer shaft is a recent trend towards development of lightweight and fuel-efficient powertrain for passenger car. In addition, customer's expectation of superior NVH inside vehicle cabin is increasing day by day. Engine mounts address majority of the NVH issues related to transfer of vibration from engine to passenger cabin. Idle vibration isolation for a three-cylinder engine is a challenging task due to possibility of overlapping of Powertrain's rigid body modes with engine's firing frequency. This Overlapping of rigid body can be avoided either by modifying mount characteristic or by changing the position of mounts based on multi-body-dynamics (MBD) simulation. This paper explains about two types of engine mounting system for a front-wheel drive transversely mounted three-cylinder engine. The base vehicle was having three-point mounting system i.e. all three engine mounts were pre-loaded.

The lubrication system of an internal combustion engine is a crucial component that performs a variety of functions, including lowering friction, cooling, supporting the load, and cleaning debris from the engine’s various moving components. Oil aeration refers to the phenomenon of trapping air bubbles in lubricating oil. High oil aeration can have a detrimental effect on engine performance since modern engines are equipped with parts such as VVT, HLA, RFF, PCJ, LCJ, and other components; whose operation is substantially impacted by the amount of air in circulating oil. In this study, an Inline 4-cylinder NA DOHC gasoline engine was tested with a densimeter-type aeration measuring machine. Test equipment layout which consists of hoses of various diameters and lengths were designed, fabricated, and instrumented to operate under different test conditions. Visual observations and quantitative measurements of oil aeration were performed in the oil sump.

Aerodynamic evaluation plays an important role in the new vehicle development process to meet the ever increasing demand of Fuel Economy (FE), superior aero acoustics and thermal performance. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is extensively used to evaluate the performance of the vehicle at early design stage to overcome cost of proto-parts, late design changes and for time line adherence. CFD is extensively used to optimize the vehicle’s shape, profiles and design features starting from the concept stage to improve the vehicle’s aerodynamic performance. Since the shape of the vehicle determines the flow behavior around it, the performance is different for hatchback, notchback and SUV type of vehicles. In a hatchback vehicle, the roof line is abruptly truncated at the end, which causes flow separation and increase in drag.

Recent automotive trend shows that customer demand is moving towards bigger size vehicle with more comfort, space, safety, feature and technology. Global market of SUV is projected to surpass 21 million units by 2020. Despite economic slowdown and weak new car sales worldwide, India and China will continue to be primary market for SUV due to sheer size of population, urban expanding middle class and larger untapped rural market. However, stricter emission norms push for clean and green technology and unfavorable policy towards use of diesel vehicle has made the SUV design very challenging due to conflicting needs. Due to bigger size of vehicle, aerodynamic design plays an important role in achieving emission targets and higher fuel efficiency. This paper highlights the aerodynamic development of Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza, which is an entry level SUV vehicle with high ground clearance of 198 mm and best in class fuel economy of 24.3 kmpl.

Diesel engines as prime movers for passenger cars are becoming popular, primarily due to their superior thermal efficiency. However, the peak thermal efficiency does not exceed 35 to 40% even in the best engines. Huge efforts are being put in to improve engine efficiencies to meet ever stringent fuel economy requirements. Such efforts are mainly focused on combustion improvement and parasitic losses reduction. However, a large part of the energy input to engine is lost to cooling system, exhaust gases and other heat losses. Such losses are higher at part and low loads which is where the engine operates in normal usage conditions. This paper analyses in detail the various energy losses at different engine operating regimes. Quantification of losses and understanding of loss mechanism serves as a starting point for future technologies to recover the lost energy. Quantification of losses: Losses in different systems are quantified at different engine operating regimes.

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 has gone through a lot of transformation over the last decade. Today it is the 6th largest and one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Rising income level, increased consumerism, rapid growth in urbanization and digitization have attributed to this change. Government focus on “Make in India” for promoting trade and investment in India have ensured that India emerge as one of the largest growing economies in the world. The automotive industry played a pivotal role in the manufacturing sector to boost economic activities in India. The passenger car market has increased 3 times over the last decade and it has led to increased mobility options for many people across India. However, this has put concerns on the country’s energy security and emission levels. According to IEA’s recent report on global CO2 emission, 32.31 Gt of CO2 emissions were from fuel combustion in 2016, out of which transport sector contributed ~25%.

To sustain market leadership position one has to continuously improve their product and services so that on one hand customer expectations are met and on the other hand business profitability is maintained. Value engineering is one of the approach through which we can achieve these two objectives simultaneously. Enhancing the value of running products is always a challenge as there is limited scope and flexibility to modify the current design and processes. Value engineering approach, integrated in product development cycle, brings great opportunity to upgrade the new and running products. This study reveals approach to upgrade the base engine of Maruti Alto. Upgraded engine is used in Alto 800 vehicle launched in October 2012. Improvement points were studied based on the business requirement, market competition, and legislative requirements. Based on functional improvement points, all the design parameters were studied and finalized.

Radiators are one of the major components in the automotive engine cooling system. The road excitations from the frame to the radiator are dampened using rubber bushes. In this work, we analyzed a radiator sub-assembly with bushes by applying acceleration which are recorded at the center of gravity of the radiator. The radiator is considered as the concentrated mass which is attached to the upper and the lower radiator tank which is further connected to the frame through the bushings. An implicit transient dynamic analysis is set up. The hyper elastic coefficients for EPDM rubber are determined using the experimental data fit and structural damping coefficients are applied. When excited by the acceleration applied at center of the radiator component, the rubber bushes are deformed severely. Moreover, the analysis shows high strains in certain location on the upper bush where the part showed actual failure in the testing.

With the increasing competition in the automotive industry, customer experience & satisfaction is at the top of every organization's goals. The customers have evolved & NVH refinement has become the parameter for their decision making in buying a car. The major source of rumble noise in a vehicle is the induced vibrations due to combustion forces in an IC engine. These vibrations are then transferred to the vehicle body through engine mounts. Hence engine mounts play a key role in defining the NVH & the ride performance of any vehicle. However, it is infeasible to validate every mount design through the physical test as it will be both costly & time-consuming. But multiple design iterations can be verified by the CAE approach quite effectively. This paper focuses on the novel CAE approach to evaluate the mount vibrations due to engine dynamics. The process involves preparing a FEA model of the complete Powertrain system.

Rapidly changing emission and fuel efficiency regulations are pushing the design optimization boundaries further in the Indian car market which is already a very cost conscious. Fuel economy can be improved by reducing moving parts friction and weight optimization. Driveline or Transmission power losses are major factor in overall efficiency of rotating parts in a vehicle. Transmission efficiency can be improved by using low viscosity oil, reducing oil quantity and reducing churning losses in car transmission. Changes like low viscosity and reduced oil volume give rise to challenges like compromised lubrication and durability of rotating parts. This further leads to extended design cycles for launching new cars with better transmission efficiency and fuel economy into the market. Design cycle time can be reduced by using CFD simulation for oil flow validation in the early design stage.

Vehicles in India will soon come with star ratings, signifying how environment-friendly they are. The OEM's have braced to improve fuel economy of their existing & upcoming models. Tyre rolling resistance is one of the significant factors for vehicle fuel consumption. Improvement in Fuel consumption is always a prime focus area & to improve it all major factors are considered. In newly launched models, the low rolling resistance tyre development was initiated. The project is challenging as it requires not only achieving low rolling resistance in smaller size tyres (12″ to 13″) but also required to meet other critical vehicle performance parameters like ride, handling, NVH & durability. Effects of Tyre construction, rubber compound were analyzed to achieve lower rolling resistance and better durability of tyre. In addition, the factors affecting the rolling resistance of tyre like inflation pressure, load, and speed in smaller tyre sizes (12″ to 13″) are discussed in this paper.

Global automobile market is very sensitive to vehicle fuel economy. Gross vehicle weight has substantial effects on FE. Hence, for designers it becomes utmost important to work on the weight reduction ideas up to single component level. Fuel delivery pipe (Fuel Rail) is one such component where there is a big potential. Fuel rail is an integral part of the vehicle fuel system and is mounted on the engine. Primarily it serves as a channel of fuel supply from fuel tank through fuel lines to the multiple fuel injectors, which further sprays the fuel into intake ports at high pressure. Due to opening and closing of injectors, pulsations are generated in fuel lines, so fuel rail also acts as a surge tank as well as a pulsation damper. All these factors make the design of a fuel rail very critical and unique for a particular engine. Materials like aluminum, plastic and sheet metal are generally used for fuel rail manufacturing.

Automobile Catalyst are used to convert Harmful gases emitted by vehicle (CO, HC, and NOx) to less Harmful gas (CO2, H2O and N2), Catalyst Loading comprises of Platinum, Palladium and Rhodium (Rare earth metals) metal powders combined in slurry and wash-coated onto a ceramic brick. Ever since the introduction of BS6 Emissions norm (stricter emission regulation), Catalyst loading content has increased in all vehicles. The Price of these rare earth metal are increasing day by day. Typically, a BS6 regulation catalyst contains a few grams of loading content. In some vehicles there are more than one catalyst (due to regulation requirement) and in some cases catalysts are also located in the underbody, in such cases, Number and location of catalyst makes the vehicle an easy target for thieves. Recently local police authorities around the country have captured many catalysts theft gangs.

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.

Manual transmissions dominate the Indian market for their obvious benefit of low cost and higher mechanical efficiency resulting in higher fuel economy. Synchronizer system in manual transmission enables smoother and quieter gear shifting. Synchronizer ring is the key element which provides the necessary frictional torque to synchronize the speed of gear and sleeve for smooth shifting. During vehicle running, synchronizer rings are free to rattle inside the indexing clearance. High engine torsional excitation and low clutch dampening can result into increased fluctuation of the input shaft of transmission. High fluctuation or lower contact area of synchronizer ring can lead to damage on the index area. This damage may cause hard gear shifting and gear shift blockage in case of extreme damage.

As the automotive market is very dynamic and vehicle manufactures try to reduce the vehicle development cycle time, more focus is being given to CAE simulation technologies to reduce the design cycle time and number of physical tests. CAE engineers are continuously working on improving the accuracy of CAE simulation, such as using flexible body dynamic simulation in place of linear static analysis. Strength calculation under dynamic condition is more accurate as compared to static condition as it gives more clear understanding of stress variation with motion, contacts and mass inertia. Failure has been observed in new development of valve train pivot screw under test conditions. As per linear static analysis, design was judged OK. Normal linear static analysis is a two stage process. In first stage loads are calculated by hand or peak loads are taken from multibody dynamics (MBD) rigid body analysis.

The interface between human body and automotive seat contours is seat upholstery. Seating comfort has a functional correlation to the upholstery. Two seats having different upholstery will give different comfort perception. Even an ergonomically designed seat if fitted with poor quality fabric will subdue the seat comfort drastically. The effect of fabric comfort ranges from initial short term to long term comfort, driven by properties like wick-ability and factors like thermal stress. Beyond material characteristics, fabric fit also plays an important role. This paper analyses the effect of fabric parameters and construction on automotive seat comfort. A comprehensive comparative study is followed by systematic analysis and comfort improvement scope through upholstery. The research is to conclude potential of the seat fabric in enhancing the automotive seating comfort within stipulated constraints of fabric properties and cost.

As we transition towards Internet of Things (IoT) - humans are connected to each other & outside world through the smartphone. Customers tend to use smartphones for varied purposes ranging from communication to entertainment. However, the concern of distraction exists due to poor visibility & accessibility of the phone’s screen in driving condition. One of the repercussion of being connected to smartphone particularly in driving condition includes higher number of road accidents due to distraction. This paper explains one of the key initiatives taken by Maruti Suzuki India Limited to address the same.