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Due the increasing concern with the acoustic environment within automotive vehicles, there is an interest in measuring the acoustical properties of automotive door seals. These systems play an important role in blocking external noise sources, such as aerodynamic noise and tire noise, from entering the passenger compartment. Thus, it is important to be able to conveniently measure their acoustic performance. Previous methods of measuring the ability of seals to block sound required the use of either a reverberation chamber, or a wind tunnel with a special purpose chamber attached to it. That is, these methods required the use of large and expensive facilities. A simpler and more economical desktop procedure is thus needed to allow easy and fast acoustic measurement of automotive door seals.

Pumped two-phase systems using mini or microchannel heat sink evaporators are prime candidates for high heat flux applications due to relatively low pumping power requirements and efficient heat removal in compact designs. A number of challenges exist in the implementation of these systems including: ensuring subcooled liquid to the pump to avoid cavitation, avoiding dry out conditions in heat exchangers that can lead to failures of the components under cooling, and avoiding flow instabilities that can damage components in an integrated system. To reduce risk and cost, modeling and simulation can be employed in the design and development of these complex systems, but such modeling must include the relevant behavior necessary to capture the above dynamic effects.

Automobile rubber isolator was subjected to random load cycle for a long time in the service process, and its main rubber material for vibration isolation was prone to fatigue failure. Since the traditional Miner damage theory overlooked the load randomness, it had a prediction error problem. In order to improve the prediction accuracy of rubber fatigue life, the traditional Miner damage theory was modified by random uncertainty theory to predict the rubber fatigue life under random load. Firstly, the rubber dumbbell-shaped test column, which was vulcanized from rubber materials commonly used in vibration isolators, was taken as the research object. The uniaxial fatigue test of rubber under different strain amplitudes and strain mean values was carried out. Then the fatigue characteristic curve of rubber with equivalent strain amplitude as the damage parameter was established.

Because the power unit of electric vehicle has large torque, the rubber mount of electric vehicle is fully compressed under the condition of full throttle acceleration. When designing the mount of electric vehicle, the dynamic-to-static stiffness ratio of mount under the case should be as low as possible to improve the vibration isolation rate of the mount. In this paper, a method for calculating the high frequency dynamic characteristics of rubber isolators under different preloads is presented. Firstly, the dynamic characteristics of rubber specimens under various shear pre-strains were tested. The test results show that the dynamic stiffness of specimen decreases at first and then increases with the increase of shear strain. The viscoelastic parameters of rubber in frequency domain under different pre-strain were identified according to the experimental data. Secondly, a finite element modeling method was proposed.

A ball joint is an important component of the automotive drive shaft system, as well the contact stress inside the ball joint is an important optimization goal in the design of ball joints. At present, the analysis of the contact stress inside the ball joint mainly focuses on the static contact stress analysis. The static contact stress analysis, however, cannot reflect the change of the contact stress inside the ball joint. In order to analyze the contact stress of the ball joint more effectively, a hybrid flexible and rigid bodies dynamics (HFRBD) model of the ball joint for studying the dynamic contact stress inside the ball joint is proposed. In the HFRBD model, the balls are regarded as the rigid body, while the cage, the inner race and the outer race are regarded as the flexible body. The contact parameters of the contact pairs in the model are determined on the basis of Hertz contact theory.

Excessive vibration and poor controllability occur in many mobile fluid power applications, with negative consequences as concerns operators' health and comfort as well as machine safety and productivity. This paper addresses the problem of reducing oscillations in fluid power machines presenting a novel control technique of general applicability. Strong nonlinearities of hydraulic systems and the unpredictable operating conditions of the specific application (e.g. uneven ground, varying loads, etc.) are the main challenges to the development of satisfactory general vibration damping methods. The state of the art methods are typically designed as a function of the specific application, and in many cases they introduce energy dissipation and/or system slowdown. This paper contributes to this research by introducing an energy efficient active damping method based on feedback signals from pressure sensors mounted on the flow control valve block.

Gas engines often utilize a small-volume pre-chamber in which fuel is injected at near stoichiometric condition to produce a hot turbulent jet which then ignites the lean mixture in the main chamber. Hot jet ignition has several advantages over traditional spark ignition, e.g., more reliable ignition of extra-lean mixtures and more surface area for ignition resulting in faster burning and improved combustion burn time. Our previous experimental results show that supersonic jets could extend the lean flammability limit of fuel/air mixtures in the main chamber in comparison to subsonic jets. The present paper investigated the characteristics of supersonic hot jets generated by combustion of stoichiometric H2/air in a pre-chamber to understand the ignition mechanism of ultra-lean mixtures by supersonic hot jets.

An experimental-analytic method of determining the stress distribution in narrow faced spur gear teeth is presented. The successful application of photostress to this contact problem is reported. It utilizes a digital computer routine developed for separating stresses in any general two-dimensional region. Results for two pairs of gears are presented. Comparison is made with values predicted by the modified Lewis formula, the Kelley and Pedersen equation, and by the Belajef solution of the Hertz contact problem for two cylinders.

This paper reviews some applications of lattice Boltzmann methods (LBM) to compute multiphase flows. The method is based on the solution of a kinetic equation which describes the evolution of the distribution of the population of particles whose collective behavior reproduces fluid behavior. The distribution is modified by particle streaming and collisions on a lattice. Modeling of physics at a mesoscopic level enables LBM to naturally incorporate physical properties needed to compute complex flows. In multiphase flows, the surface tension and phase segregation are incorporated by considering intermolecular attraction forces. Furthermore, the solution of the kinetic equations representing linear advection and collision, in which non-linearity is lumped locally, makes it parallelizable with relative ease. In this paper, a brief review of the lattice Boltzmann method relevant to engine sprays will be presented.

This paper describes a simulation approach for the modeling of tandem external gear pumps. A tandem gear pump is the combination of two pumps with a common drive shaft. Such design architecture finds application in certain automotive transmission systems. The model presented in this work is applicable for pumps with both helical and spur gears. The simulation model is built on the HYGESim (HYdraulic GEars machines Simulator) previously developed by the authors for external spur gear units. In this work, the model formulation is properly extended to the capabilities of simulating helical gears. Starting directly from the CAD drawings of the unit, the fluid-dynamic model solves the internal instantaneous tooth space volume pressures and the internal flows following a lumped parameter approach. The simulation tool considers also the radial micro-motion of the gears, which influences the internal leakages and the features of the meshing process.

In order to enhance the efficiency of durability testing of automobile parts, a time-frequency domain accelerated editing method of road load time series of rubber mount on powertrain was discussed. Based on Stockwell Transform method and Accumulative Power Spectral Density, a new time-frequency domain accelerated editing method (ST-APSD) was proposed. The accumulative power spectral density was obtained by ST of the load time series signal of automobile powertrain rubber mounting force which is acquired by the real vehicle in the test field. Based on the accumulative power spectral density, the threshold value was proposed to identify and delete the small damage load fragments, and then the acceleration spectrum was obtained.

This work contributes to the overall goal of identifying and reducing noise sources and propagation in hydraulic systems. This is a general problem and a primary design concern for all fluid power applications. The need for new methods for identification of noise sources and transmission is evident in order to direct future modeling and experimental efforts aimed at reducing noise emissions of current fluid power machines. In this paper, this goal is accomplished through the formulation of noise functions used to identify contributions and transfer paths from different components of the system. An experimental method for noise transfer path analysis was developed and tested on a simple hydraulic system composed of a reference external gear pump, attached lines, and loading valve. Pressure oscillations in the working fluid are measured at the outlet of the pump. Surface vibrations are measured at multiple locations on the pump and connected system.

Early experience with precision farming technology suggests that some hardware and software may follow a rapid S curve adoption path, but that the use of integrated precision farming systems may take longer to develop and be subject to false starts and periods of stagnation. Yield monitors appear to be following a classic S curve adoption path. Precision farming adoption is like that of hybrid corn because changes in organizations will be required to use it effectively. It is like motorized mechanization because it is coming on the market in an immature form and lends itself to farmer tinkering.

An Inline 4-cylinder engine is equipped with second-order balance shafts. When the engine is running under no-load acceleration conditions, the gear system of the balance shaft generated whine noise. In this paper, an analysis and experiment method for reducing the whine noise is presented. First, a flexible multi-body dynamic model of the engine is established, which includes shaft and casing deformation, micro-modification of the gears. Taking the measured cylinder pressure as input, the load on each gear of balance shaft gear system is calculated. In addition, the influence of tooth surface micro-modification on the meshed noise was analyzed. The results show that the dynamic meshing force between the crank gear and the shim gear is large under the original tooth surface micro-modification parameters, which is the main reason of the whine noise.

As the main power source of new energy vehicles, the durability and fatigue characteristics of the battery pack directly affect the performance of the vehicle. The battery pack system was modelled using multi-body dynamics software, with 7 and 13 degree of freedom models developed. Using the established model, the intrinsic properties of the battery pack are computationally analyzed. To calculate the dynamic characteristics, a sinusoidal displacement excitation is applied to the wheel centre of mass, and the displacement and acceleration of the battery pack centre of mass are calculated for both models.The displacement and acceleration curves at the centre of mass of the battery pack of the two models are compared. The results show that the amplitude of the displacement and acceleration curves at the centre of mass of the 13 degrees of freedom model of the battery pack has decreased significantly.

A dynamic performance calculating model for a powertrain-subframe mounting system (PSMS) is presented. Calculation methods for determining the dynamic displacements of a powertrain center of gravity (CG), the dynamic displacements of a subframe CG and the dynamic reaction forces of each mount in a PSMS under ground and motor shake excitation are developed in this paper. An optimization procedure based on the genetic algorithm and SQP is developed for reducing resonance peaks of the reaction forces at mounts. A generic PSMS with three powertrain-subframe mounts and four subframe-body mounts is used to validate the optimization method. The optimization results demonstrate that the results using the optimization procedure can effectively reduce the reaction forces at mounts.

Conventional suspension analysis of three-dimensional suspensions typically use two-dimensional analyses. This is done by projecting suspension components onto two-dimensional planes and then performing a two-dimensional analysis in each of these orthogonal planes or neglecting motions in one of the planes entirely. This requires multiple iterations because changes in one plane require a checking of their effects on motion in the other orthogonal planes. In doing so, much of the insight and accuracy gained from a three-dimensional analysis can be lost. A three-dimensional kinematic analysis approach is presented and applied to a dual A-Arm suspension system. All motions are considered instantaneously about a screw axis instead of a point as used by the usual two-dimensional modeling approach. The model predicts deflections of suspension components in response to the three-dimensional forces present at the contact patch.

Electric centrifugal air compressor is one of the most important auxiliary components for the fuel cell engine, which has great impacts on the system efficiency, cost and compactness. However, the centrifugal compressor works at an ultra-high speed for a long time, which poses a great challenge to the lives of motor, bearing and seal. Therefore, reducing the rotating speed of the impeller and maintaining high pressure ratio and high efficiency are important issues for aerodynamic design of the compressor. In this paper, a centrifugal compressor rotor for a 100kW fuel cell system is designed. Aiming at reducing the rotating speed, the influences of three key structural parameters including inlet blade angle, outlet blade angle and blade outlet radius on performance are investigated. The aerodynamic performance of the compressor is predicted using the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations with computational fluid dynamic (CFD) tools.

A low-cost hydrostatic absorption dynamometer has been developed for small to medium sized engines. The dynamometer was designed and built by students to support student projects and educational activities. The availability of such a dynamometer permits engine break-in cycles, performance testing, and laboratory instruction in the areas of engines, fuels, sensors, and data acquisition. The dynamometer, capable of loading engines up to 60kW at 155Nm and 3600rpm, incorporates a two-section gear pump and an electronically operated proportional pressure control valve to develop and control the load. A bypass valve permits the use of only one pump section, allowing increased fidelity of load control at lower torque levels. Torque is measured directly on the drive shaft with a strain gage. Torque and speed signals are transmitted by an inductively-powered collar mounted to the dynamometer drive shaft. Pressure transducers at the pump inlet and pump outlet allow secondary load measurement.

Nested planetary gear trains, which consist of two integrated co-axial single-stage planetary gearsets, have recently been widely implemented in automobile transmissions and various other applications. In the current study, a non-destructive vibrational and acoustical monitoring technique is developed to detect a common type of gear grinding defect for a complex nested gear train structure. A nested gear train which has an unground pinion with unpolished teeth profile is used to exemplify the developed methodology. An experimental test stand with an open and vertical mounting configuration has been designed to acquire both vibrational and acoustical data. The measured data are investigated using several signal processing techniques to identify unground pinions in the gear system. A general frequency spectrum analysis is performed initially, which is then followed by a peak finding algorithm to identify the peaks in the spectrum.