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The goal of this study is to develop an actively translating rear diffuser device to reduce the aerodynamic drag experienced by passenger cars. The feature of this device is hidden under the rear bumper ordinarily not to ruin the external design of the car and slips out backward under the high-speed driving condition. By this study, a movable arc-shaped semi-diffuser device is designed to maintain the streamlined automobile rear underbody configuration. It's installed under the rear bumper of a passenger car. Seven types of rear diffuser devices whose positions, slid out lengths and widths are differing with the basic shape installed in the rear bumper section of a passenger car and performed Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analyses under rotating wheel and moving ground conditions. The main purpose of this study is that explains the aerodynamic drag reduction mechanism of a passenger car via an actively translating rear diffuser device at a high speed driving condition.

A series of experiments and computational analysis were carried out on the flow around a bluff body. Some non-streamlined ground vehicles, buildings and pipelines near to the ground could encounter very dangerous situations because of the unsteady wind loading caused by the periodic vortex shedding behind the bluff body. A two-dimensional bluff body model was used to simulate flow in the wake region. Spectral analysis of the velocity profiles in the underbody region was also used to examine the influence of the underbody flow in the wake region. By using a flow visualization technique, the critical gap height and the separation line on the ground were investigated for various gap heights and boundary layer thicknesses. Additionally, the 2-D Incompressible Navier-Stokes equation with an ε - SST (Strain Shear Stress Transport) turbulence model was used for comparison with experimental results.

The role of 1D simulation tool is growing as the engine system is becoming more complex with the adoption of a variety of new technologies. For the reliability of the 1D simulation results, it is necessary to improve the accuracy and applicability of the combustion model implemented in the 1D simulation tool. Since the combustion process in SI engine is mainly determined by the turbulence, many models have been concentrating on the prediction of the evolution of in-cylinder turbulence intensity. In this study, two turbulence models which can resemble the turbulence intensity close to that of 3D CFD tool were utilized. The first model is dedicated to predicting the evolution of turbulence intensity during intake and compression strokes so that the turbulence intensity at the spark timing can be estimated properly. The second model is responsible for predicting the turbulence intensity of burned and unburned zone during the combustion process.

As speed of ground vehicle increases, there are increased concerns on the aerodynamic drag reduction of ground vehicle. Recently, synthetic jet is emerging as a promising active flow control technology for aerodynamic drag reduction. In this paper, we performed an experimental parametric study on synthetic jet for aerodynamic drag reduction of Ahmed model. Synthetic jet array is constructed by twelve synthetic jet actuators, and installed on two kinds of Ahmed models, of which slant angles are 25° and 35°. The jets are emanated between the roof and the rear slant surface. Jet angle, momentum coefficient, and driving frequency are changed to assess the effect of synthetic jet array on aerodynamic drag. To quantify the effect of synthetic jet, the aerodynamic drag and rear surface pressure are measured and analyzed. From the result, the effect of synthetic jet actuation on aerodynamic drag differs according to the slant angle of the body.

Exterior shape of automobile can be represented by shape function through this study so that aerodynamic shape parameters can be easily controlled and changed. Also ordinary geometric information can be extracted easily from shape function model by simple calculations. It is possible to predict the aerodynamic performance of functional virtual car models which are transformed continually by developing automated program in initial design stage that includes all of above process. Innovative vehicle design process with exterior design guide will be proposed for stylist, engineer and packaging department in order to achieve low aerodynamic drag and high fuel efficiency targets.

Characteristics of syngas combustion at various reforming ratios were studied numerically. The syngas was formed by the partial oxidation of methane to mainly hydrogen and carbon monoxide and cooled to ambient temperature. Stiochiometric and lean premixed flames of the mixtures of methane and the syngas were compared at the atmospheric temperature and pressure conditions. The adiabatic flame temperature decreased with the reforming ratio. The laminar burning velocity, however, increased with the reforming ratio. For stretched flames in a counterflow, the high temperature region was broadened with the reforming ratio. The maximum flame temperature decreased with the reforming ratio for the stoichiometric case, but increased for the lean case except for the region of very low stretch rate. The extinction stretch rate increased with the reforming ratio, implying that the syngas assisted flame is more resistance to turbulence level.

This paper describes the ground system model and algorithm for a ground level simulation tool. First, the modeling of an automotive ground system will be discussed and the algorithm for a simulation tool will be explained. We divided the model into a ground tree and a ground body. The ground tree model consists of resistance formed by the wires that connect the load to ground point with various structures and the ground body model consists of resistance between ground points in the car body. The wires with large current, such as engine ground cable, was modeled in detail by dividing the resistance into wire, bolt, and clamping resistance, in order to simulate the effect of increased contact resistance after durability test. The algorithm of the ground level simulation tool was designed to adjust the currents of the alternator, battery, and ground points in order to evaluate the various driving and load conditions.

A module based IPS (Intelligent Power Switch) evaluation system is proposed in this paper. As the IPS is gradually replacing the conventional relay and fuses, the stability and reliability of power system depends more on these IPS. The proposed IPS evaluation system outperforms the conventional manual evaluation in terms of speed and efficiency. This paper will introduce the structure of hardware and software of the IPS evaluation system. The system is placed between the module and cable connector to evaluate the module in an operating car without changing the cables. The control and signal processing is carried out by personal computer which is connected to the evaluation system by USB (Universal Serial Bus). The load resistance can be switch from actual load to arbitrary value using relay circuitry and DC electric load controlled by GPIB (General Purpose Interface Bus). CAN (Controller Area Network) circuits were added to control the IPS mounted inside the module.

In this study, the spalling issue in ball-type Constant Velocity Joints (CVJ) was investigated. As one of the most common types of outboard CVJ, a ball-type CVJ has spalling problems caused by fatigue at the internal contact points. It causes noise and vibration in vehicles, which results in CVJ failures. This study provides a spalling-estimation model for a ball-type CVJ, which was developed by the following five steps. First, the relative coordinates of the internal contact points between each component were established by forward kinematics. Second, the acting forces were calculated according to the results of the relative coordinate analyses and the vehicle driving conditions, and then normal pressure at the contact points was derived by Hertz contact theory. Third, the maximum sliding speeds at the contact points were also calculated using slip motion analyses. These normal pressure and maximum sliding speeds were used to estimate the shear stresses at the contact points.

Fatigue life of a V-belt pulley, which is commonly used in automotive powertrain to transfer power to other parts, is predicted based on damage analysis by finite element analysis (FEA). Load conditions on pulley are analyzed by considering interactions among the pulley, V belt, bracket and bolts. Both normal force and traction force on the contact surfaces between the pulley and V belt were calculated. Assembly load due to the tightening of the bolts as well as operation load was considered to describe the actual load conditions in durability test. Static analysis at initial position of the pulley after assembly was performed with given load conditions. As the pulley rotated every ten degrees, consecutive static analyses were followed to find out the stress history of the pulley during operation. Using stress history data calculated from FE analysis, damage over one rotation of pulley was calculated and fatigue life, number of rotation to failure, was estimated.

Large-eddy simulation (LES) applications for internal combustion engine (ICE) flows are constantly growing due to the increase of computing resources and the availability of suitable CFD codes, methods and practices. The LES superior capability for modeling spatial and temporal evolution of turbulent flow structures with reference to RANS makes it a promising tool for describing, and possibly motivating, ICE cycle-to-cycle variability (CCV) and cycle-resolved events such as knock and misfire. Despite the growing interest towards LES in the academic community, applications to ICE flows are still limited. One of the reasons for such discrepancy is the uncertainty in the estimation of the LES computational cost. This in turn is mainly dependent on grid density, the CFD domain extent, the time step size and the overall number of cycles to be run. Grid density is directly linked to the possibility of reducing modeling assumptions for sub-grid scales.

Modeling of unburned hydrocarbon oxidation in an SI engine was performed in engine condition using modified one-step oxidation model. The new one-step equation was developed by modifying the Arrhenius reaction rate coefficients of the conventional one-step model. The modified model was well matched with the results of detailed chemical reaction mechanism in terms of 90 % oxidation time of the fuel. In this modification, the effect of pressure and intermediate species in the burnt gas on the oxidation rate investigated and included in developed one-step model. The effect of pressure was also investigated and included as an additional multiplying factor in the reaction equation. To simulate the oxidation process of piston crevice hydrocarbons, a computational mesh was constructed with fine mesh density at the piston crevice region and the number of cell layers in cylinder was controlled according to the motion of piston.