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Numerous modern military and commercial vehicles rely on portable, battery-powered sources for electric energy. Due to their highly specialized functions these vehicles are typically custom-designed, produced in limited numbers, and expensive. To mitigate the power system's contribution to these undesirable characteristics, this paper proposes a modular power system architecture consisting of “smart” power battery units (SPUs) that can be readily interconnected in numerous ways to provide distributed and coordinated system power management. The proposed SPUs contain a battery power source and a power electronics converter. They are compatible with multiple battery chemistries (or any energy storage device that can produce a terminal voltage), allowing them to be used with both existing and future energy storage technologies.

Alcohols, because of their potential to be produced from renewable sources and their characteristics suitable for clean combustion, are considered potential fuels which can be blended with fossil-based gasoline for use in internal combustion engines. As such, n-butanol has received a lot of attention in this regard and has shown to be a possible alternative to pure gasoline. The main issue preventing butanol's use in modern engines is its relatively high cost of production. Acetone-Butanol-Ethanol (ABE) fermentation is one of the major methods to produce bio-butanol. The goal of this study is to investigate the combustion characteristics of the intermediate product in butanol production, namely ABE, and hence evaluate its potential as an alternative fuel. Acetone, n-butanol and ethanol were blended in a 3:6:1 volume ratio and then splash blended with pure ethanol-free gasoline with volumetric ratios of 0%, 20%, 40% to create various fuel blends.

Acetone-Butanol-Ethanol (ABE), an intermediate product in the ABE fermentation process for producing bio-butanol, is considered a promising alternative fuel because it not only preserves the advantages of oxygenated fuel which typically emit less pollutants compared to conventional diesel, but also lowers the cost of fuel recovery for each individual component during the fermentation. With the development of advanced ABE fermentation technology, the volumetric percentage of acetone, butanol and ethanol in the bio-solvents can be precisely controlled. In this respect, it is desirable to estimate the performance of different ABE blends to determine the best blend and optimize the production process accordingly. ABE fuels with different component ratio, (A: B: E: 6:3:1; 3:6:1; 0:10:0, vol. %), were blended with diesel and tested in a constant volume chamber.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the possibility of acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) blended with diesel without further component recovery which has high costs blocking the industrial-scale production of bio-butanol. The combustion characteristics of ABE and diesel blends were studied in a constant volume chamber. In this study, 50% and 80% vol. ABE (without water) were mixed with diesel and the vol. % of acetone, butanol and ethanol were kept at 30%, 60% and 10% respectively. The in-cylinder pressure was recorded using a pressure transducer and the time-resolved natural luminosity was captured by high speed imaging. Combustion visualization using laser diagnostics would provide crucial fundamental information of the fuel's combustion characteristics. With the different percentage of the ABE blended in the diesel, the soot oxidation, the ignition delay and the soot lift-off length were studied in this work.

The data shown in the previously published version of Figure 4 is from experiments performed with corn at 14%, rather than 21% as intended and indicated by the caption. The correct Figure 4, reflecting data from experiments performed with corn at 21%, should appear as shown in the erratum.

Biodiesel is considered one of the most promising alternative fuels to petrol fuels. In this study, an attempt has been made to investigate and compare the effect of fuel injection pressure, injection timing, and exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) ratio on the particle size distributions and exhaust emissions of the diesel and biodiesel produced from waste cooking oil (WCO) used in a common rail direct injection (CRDI) diesel engine. The engine tests were conducted at two injection pressures (800 and 1600 bar), two injection timings (25 and 5 deg before top dead center (bTDC) and three EGR ratios (10%, 20% 30%) at a constant fuel injection energy per stroke and engine speed (1200 r/min). The results indicated that carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrocarbon (HC) emissions of biodiesel were slightly lower, but nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions were slightly higher, than those of diesel fuel under most operating conditions.

In this paper, a model-based diagnostic system was developed to detect and isolate the dosing fault and the outlet NOx sensor fault for the SCR system. The dosing fault is treated as an actuator additive fault, while the outlet NOx sensor drift and/or offset fault is treated as a sensor additive fault. First, a 0-D SCR model was developed to facilitate the model-based approach. A parity equation residual generator was designed based on the linearized SCR model and the fault transfer function matrix. The diagnostic algorithm is then implemented in the Matlab/Simulink environment for validation. A high fidelity nonlinear 1-D SCR model is used to generate system outputs and to simulate the plant. The simulation results show that the model-based fault diagnosis system succeeds in detecting and isolating the outlet NOx sensor and dosing faults with good sensitivity and robustness

This book provides practicing engineers, researchers, and students with a working knowledge of the fatigue design process and models under multiaxial states of stress and strain. Readers are introduced to the important considerations of multiaxial fatigue that differentiate it from uniaxial fatigue.

In order to evaluate the variation in distance estimation accuracy, a survey was conducted during which 123 subjects estimated distances to static objects in a roadway setting. The subjects (which included many police officers) tended to underestimate distances to objects that were from 21 to 383 feet away; the average estimation error was −8.6% while the median error was − 22%. The variation in performance among individuals was extremely large, with extreme errors ranging from − 96% to + 811%. The distribution of error did not conform to a Gaussian (normal) distribution because of the skew of the observed error distribution towards large positive errors. Box plots were used to identify nine “outlier” respondents who produced a total of 15 error estimates which were extraordinary in their difference from the rest of the data.

The primary breakup of a planar liquid sheet produced by an air-blast atomizer was studied through numerical simulations, in order to reveal physical mechanisms involved during this process. The reliability of simulations was verified by comparing the macroscopic parameters, e.g. breakup time and spatial growth rate, with experimental data. Shear instability and RT (Rayleigh-Taylor) instability were found to play important roles during the primary breakup. By analyzing the acceleration of a fluid parcel within liquid sheet using Discrete Particle Method, and measuring the wave length of transverse unstable wave, RT instability was found to be partially responsible for transverse instability. The predictions of LISA (Linearized Instability Sheet Atomization) model on breakup time were compared to experiments, and obvious differences were found to exist.

For the roll vibration problem of a Truck, a 4-DOF roll vibration model of its front suspension system was built. According to dynamics theory, the complex modal vibration modes of the model were all obtained. At the same time, the frequency response functions of frame roll angle acceleration, the relative dynamic load of wheel and the suspension dynamic deflection were respectively presented. Then their characteristics were respectively researched. In the process of characteristic analysis, a new system parameter was proposed, which is the space ratio of the space between suspensions of left and right sides and the wheel track of the front axle (space ratio in short). At last, the influence of system parameters on the vibration transmission property was also reserached, which included the natural frequency of the frame, the damping ratio, the stiffness ratio, the mass ratio, the rotational inertia ratio and the space ratio.

Most of the Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) applications are aiming at improving both driving safety and comfort. Understanding human drivers' driving styles that make the systems more human-like or personalized for ADAS is the key to improve the system performance, in particular, the acceptance and adaption of ADAS to human drivers. The research presented in this paper focuses on the classification and identification for personalized driving styles. To motivate and reflect the information of different driving styles at the most extent, two sets, which consist of six kinds of stimuli with stochastic disturbance for the leading vehicles are created on a real-time Driver-In-the-Loop Intelligent Simulation Platform (DILISP) with PanoSim-RT®, dSPACE® and DEWETRON® and field test with both RT3000 family and RT-Range respectively.

This paper focuses on the spray and atomization characteristics of a Dual-Fuel Injector (DFI) which includes a primary and a secondary fuel inlet. Three injectors were analyzed in this study. Apart from the DFI, two conventional diesel injectors were tested as baselines for comparison - a piezo-electric and a solenoid injector. The rail pressures ranged from 200 - 500 bar for the conventional injectors. The DFI was tested first as a single-fuel injector (by sealing the secondary inlet) at pressures ranging from 100 - 300 bar, and then in its dual-fuel mode with the primary inlet pressure ranging from 100 - 300 bar, and the secondary inlet at 25 bar higher than the primary pressure. Injection duration of 0.5 ms was chosen for the experiment. High-speed Mie scattering images were recorded to capture the spray evolution. Phase Doppler Anemometry (PDA) measurements were conducted at different locations in the spray for the acquisition of droplet sizes and velocity distributions.

Nonlinear ultrasonics is a powerful method for detecting microscopic damage and stress in materials. The method is based on introducing a perturbation signal at high frequency, and monitoring higher order harmonics for microscopic damage or quantifying the frequency shift for measuring stress. As the influence of microscopic damage and stress to the ultrasonic signal is weak, a highly precise measurement is needed. In this paper, errors in the measurement equipment, measurement methodology, and couplant type are experimentally quantified. Random errors and unknown systematic errors inherent to the method and its tools are defined. The measurement uncertainty in nonlinear ultrasonics is quantified. Based on the limitation of the measurement accuracy, minimum detectable stress level is defined.