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As part of a system model, a PEM fuel cell stack model is presented for functional tests and pre-calibration of control units on hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) test benches. From the basic idea to couple a 1-D membrane model with a spatially distributed abstraction of the gas channel, a real-time capable 1-D+1-D PEM FC stack model is constructed. Fundament for the HiL usage is an explicit formulation of the commonly implicit model equations. With that, not only calculation time can be reduced, but also model accuracy is preserved. A validation using test bench data emphasizes the accuracy of the model. Finally, a runtime and eigenvalue analysis of the stack model proves the real-time capability.

During sheet metal forming processes, the friction conditions have a decisive influence on forming limits, the robustness of the production process and the quality of the parts produced, with significant forces required to overcome friction between the sheet and the tools. If lot-to-lot reproducibility is to be guaranteed, an appropriate method of characterizing the sheet surface topography is needed to monitor the sheet metal fabrication process. Newly developed optical measurement techniques and computer workstation technology are presented which enable the topography of sheet surfaces to be described in three dimensions.

Today, mechanical systems such as the piston groups of internal combustion engines are simulated using Multiple Body-System (MBS) - approaches. However, the use of these models is restricted to a few problems as their adaptability is limited. The simulation of mechanical systems only by means of finite elements shows great promise for the future. In order to consider lubrication effects between two touching bodies of a mechanical system, a hydrodynamic contact algorithm (HCA) for finite element (FE) applications was developed. This paper discusses the technical background and first results for the simulation of a piston group using this new approach.

As a consequence of reduced fuel consumption, direct injection gasoline engines have already prevailed against port fuel injection. However, in-cylinder fuel homogenization strongly depends on charge motion and injection strategies and can be challenging due to the reduced available time for mixture formation. An insufficient homogenization has generally a negative impact on the combustion and therefore also on efficiency and emissions. In order to reach the targets of the intensified CO2 emission reduction, further increase in efficiency of SI engines is essential. In this connection, 0D/1D simulation is a fundamental tool due to its application area in an early stage of development and its relatively low computational costs. Certainly, inhomogeneities are still not considered in quasi dimensional combustion models because the prediction of mixture formation is not included in the state of the art 0D/1D simulation.

The automotive industry uses supercharging in combination with various EGR strategies to meet the increasing demand for Diesel engines with high efficiency and low engine emissions. The charge air is heated by the EGR and the compression in the turbocharger to such an extent that high NOx emissions and a reduction in engine performance occurs. For this reason, the charge air cooler cools down the charge air before it enters the air intake manifold. In case of low pressure EGR, the charge air possesses a high moisture content and under certain operating conditions an accumulation of condensate takes place within the charge air cooler. During demanding engine loads, the condensate is entrained from the charge air cooler into the combustion chamber, resulting in misfiring or severe engine damage.

Introducing a new fuel alternative to gasoline is a very complex task. According to their short to mid term economical feasibility selected processes are modeled. Selected emissions and the primary energy demand of the production and the utilization of hydrogen and methanol as fuels for fuel cell powered buses are compared to conventional diesel powered buses. Different production routes for the alternative fuels are considered. Ecological and economical numbers are given and interpreted.

In the automotive industry, there is a continued need to improve the development process and handle the increasing complexity of the overall vehicle system. One major step in this process is a comprehensive and complementary approach to both simulation and testing. Knowledge of the overall dynamic vehicle behavior is becoming increasingly important for the development of new control concepts such as integrated vehicle dynamics control aiming to improve handling quality and ride comfort. However, with current well-established test systems, only separated and isolated aspects of vehicle dynamics can be evaluated. To address these challenges and further merge the link between simulation and testing, the Institute of Internal Combustion Engines and Automotive Engineering (IVK), University of Stuttgart is introducing a new Handling Roadway (HRW) Test System in cooperation with The Research Institute of Automotive Engineering and Vehicle Engines Stuttgart (FKFS) and MTS Systems Corporation.

State-of-the-art avionics systems are standardized, e.g. the computing system of the flying vehicle is composed of pre-defined and pre-qualified modules of a standardized avionics platform. Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) is the most popular representative, but not the only one. Two challenges of standardized avionics platform are system design and configuration. Since the high numbers of functions, modules, and constraints for modern air vehicles, bringing up the optimal system architecture is a difficult job if carried out manually. The subsequent process of creating millions of configuration parameters is time consuming and error prone. Both issues are similar and are, in general, processable by algorithms. Algorithms proved to provide significant support for current system design issues and might be mandatory in future, when avionics become self-organizing and the design and configuration are derived by the platform itself.

When drawing non-axissymmetric sheet metal parts it is necessary to control the flow of material between the lower and upper binder in such a manner that prevents the occurrence of both tears and wrinkles in the drawn part. One possibility for the control of the material flow is through the deliberate adjustment of the normal forces. If one can measure the flow-in of the material into the die cavity as a function of punch stroke with a special sensor, and if this information can be used to produce an empirical flow-in curve over the stroke for good parts, then it is possible to construct a closed- loop BHF control system. Building such control system is feasible by implementation of special dies with hydraulically supported segmented binders. This system allows an automatic response to a change in the friction conditions.

The costs for development and production of draw dies for car outer panels are extremely high and should be reduced. Furthermore it is necessary to reduce the time for developing, designing and producing the dies for the production of parts. This paper discusses new press techniques, die designs and an adjustment program for press operators. The trend goes to single action presses with CNC-controlled multipoint cushion systems in the press table and to special designed dies. These systems lead to a more robust and reproducible forming process with improved product quality. This paper deals with: Cushion Systems, New Binder Designs for Draw Dies for Sheet Metal Automotive Parts, New Computer Program to Adjust the Blankholder Forces of Modern Hydraulic Cushion Systems of Single Action Presses and Pressure Measurement for Detecting the Pressure between the Blank and the Binders of Draw Dies for Sheet Metal Automotive Parts.

Predictive physical modeling is an established method used in the development process for automotive components and systems. While accurate predictions can be issued after tuning model parameters, long computation times are expected depending on the complexity of the model. As requirements for components and systems continuously increase, new optimization approaches are constantly being applied to solve multidimensional objectives and resulting conflicts optimally. Some of those approaches are deemed not feasible, as the computational times for required single predictions using conventional simulation models are too high. To address this issue it is proposed to use data-driven model such as neural networks. Previous efforts have failed due to sparse data sets and resulting poor predictive ability. This paper introduces an AI Toolchain used for data-driven modeling of combustion engine components. Two methods for generating scalable and fully variable datasets will be shown.

In this paper, a simulation approach is introduced which takes into account all relevant heat sources and sinks in the combustion engine and in the engine compartment. With this approach, it is possible to calculate the appearing power flow and enthalpy flow as well as the component temperatures. Therefore, the complex thermodynamic and friction processes in the engine are described as simple as possible; the complete system can still be described reliably within certain limits, and the effects of different thermal optimization measures can be shown. It is an essential point for the modeling that only two integral quantities are necessary (the high pressure efficiency and the high pressure wall heat loss) for the complete combustion model.

The industry is working intensively on the precision of thermal management. By using complex thermal management strategies, it is possible to make engine heat distribution more accurate and dynamic, thereby increasing efficiency. Significant efforts are made to improve the cooling efficiency of the engine water jacket by using 3D CFD. As well, 1D simulation plays a significant role in the design and analysis of the cooling system, especially for considering transient behaviour of the engine. In this work, a practice-oriented universal method for creating a 1D water jacket model is presented. The focus is on the discretization strategy of 3D geometry and the calculation of heat transfer using Nusselt correlations. The basis and reference are 3D CFD simulations of the water jacket. Guidelines for the water jacket discretization are proposed. The heat transfer calculation in the 1D-templates is based on Nusselt-correlations (Nu = Nu(Re, Pr)), which are derived from 3D CFD simulations.

Knocking is one of today’s main limitations in the ongoing efforts to increase efficiency and reduce emissions of spark-ignition engines. Especially for synthetic fuels or any alternative fuel type in general with a much steeper increase of the knock frequency at the KLSA, such as hydrogen, precise knock prediction is crucial to exploit their full potential. This paper therefore proposes a post-processing tool enabling further investigations to continuously gain better understanding of the knocking phenomenon. In this context, evaluation of local auto-ignitions preceding knock is crucial to improve knowledge about the stochastic occurrence of knock but also identify critical engine design to further optimize the geometry. In contrast to 0D simulations, 3D CFD simulations provide the possibility to investigate local parameters in the cylinder during the combustion.

As known de-icing methods use a high amount of energy or environmentally harmful chemicals, research has focused lately on passive de-icing by functional surfaces with an improved removal of ice (de-icing) or a reduced formation of it (anti-icing). Inspired by the Lotus plant leaf, a “superhydrophobic” surface can be produced by the combination of a hierarchical micro/nanoscale roughness and a hydrophobic surface coating. By a hot stamping process we have generated differently shaped microstructures (cylinders, ellipses) on polyurethane (PU) films which were afterwards coated by a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) process with thin, hydrophobic fluorocarbon films. This combination of methods could be a process for the production of large area functionalized films. PU films are suitable for outdoor use, because they are resistant against erosion and UV radiation. The films can be glued to different geometries and can easily be exchanged if damaged.

In this paper, the differences between a production car of the 2018 A-class and an early stage vehicle model with a mostly similar outer skin are examined experimentally and numerically. The aerodynamic development of vehicles at Mercedes-Benz is divided into several phases. When comparing force coefficients differences can be observed between these distinct hardware stages as well as when comparing steady state simulations to wind tunnel measurements. In early phases when prototype vehicles are not yet available, so-called aero foam models are used. These are well-defined full-sized vehicle models, as the outer skin is milled from Polyurethane. Important aerodynamic characteristics such as a motor compartment with a cooling module, deflecting axles with rotatable wheels and underbody covers are represented.

According to the present state of knowledge, the use of “Tailored Blanks” with different sheet thicknesses and/or grades represents an interesting manufacturing alternative in the design and development of sheet metal parts in the automotive industry. In order to assess the forming behavior, fundamental research was conducted on laser and mash seam welded blanks. Based on this experimental findings, a segmented draw die was designed and built to determine the limits of the metal forming process by deep drawing of car body parts. The results with this draw die showed that a uniform blankholder pressure must be guaranteed during the forming process in the flange region of the part. This necessitated definite slots in the region of the weld line for the mash seam welded blanks. Furthermore, a die concept was presented to enable an equalization of both sheet thickness steps and sheet thickness fluctuations, without requiring replacement of the respective draw die components.

A wide variety of applications such as driver assistant and energy management systems are researched and developed in virtual test environments. The safe testing of the applications in early stages is based on parameterizable and reproducible simulations of different driving scenarios. One possibility is modeling the microscopic driving behavior to simulate the longitudinal vehicle dynamics of individual vehicles. The currently used driver models are characterized by a conflict regarding comprehensibility, accuracy and calibration effort. Due to the importance for further analyses this conflict of interests is addressed by the presentation of a new microscopic driver model in this paper. The proposed driver model stores measured driving behaviors with its statistical distributions in maps. Thereby, the driving task is divided into free flow, braking in front of stops and following vehicles ahead. This makes it possible to display the driving behavior in its entirety.

Improvement of heat-transfer calculation for SI-engines in the three-dimensional simulation has been achieved and widely been tested by using a phenomenological heat-transfer model. The model is based on the local application of an improved Re-Nu-correlation (dimensional analysis) proposed by Bargende [1]. This approach takes advantage of long experience in engine heat transfer modeling in the real working process analysis. The results of numerous simulations of different engine meshes show that the proposed heat-transfer model enables to calculate the overall as well as the local heat transfer in good agreement with both real working process analyses and experimental investigations. The influence of the mesh structure has also been remarkably reduced and compared to the standard wall function approach, no additional CPU-time is required.

The Institute for Polymer Testing and Polymer Science (IKP) is an independent institute of the University of Stuttgart. For approximately 8 years work is done on the field of Life Cycle Engineering. The first couple of years knowledge about the production of materials was collected within plenty industrial cooperation. Parallel to this a methodology for the Life Cycle Engineering approach and a software system (GaBi 1.0-2.0) were developed. Based on these information, projects for balancing single parts like bumpers, fender, air intake manifolds and oil filters followed by projects handling more complex parts or processes like several body in white, headlights, fuel tanks, green tire or coating processes were done to establish the methodology of Life Cycle Engineering as a tool for decision makers and weak point analysis. Parallel to this a methodology for an Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) for the system automobile was developed in cooperation with the Volkswagen AG in 1993.