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This paper presents a study of LPG lean burn in a motorcycle SI engine. The lean burn limits are compared by several ways. The relations of lean burn limit with the parameters, such as engine speed, compression ratio and advanced spark ignition etc. are tested. The experimental results show that larger throttle opening, lower engine speed, earlier spark ignition timing, larger electrode gap and higher compression ratio will extend the lean burn limit of LPG. The emission of a LPG engine, especially on NOx emission, can be significantly reduced by means of the lean burn technology.

The brake-by-wire system (BBW) is better match the new energy vehicle in the future direction of development. The electro-mechanical brake (EMB) is lack of the brake failure backup and need a high 42 V voltage for the power supply. This paper presents a new brake-by-wire hybrid brake system (HBS) with the electro-hydraulic brake (EHB) equipped on the front wheels and the EMB equipped on the rear wheels. The combination of these two brake-by-wire systems has advantages of both the EHB and EMB system. The EMB on the rear wheels totally removing the rear pipes and can be simply mounted. In addition, since the need of brake torque on the rear axle is relatively small, the power supply of EMB can be reduced to 12 V. Meanwhile, the EHB on the front wheels has the failure backup function through the hydraulic line. The HBS can quickly and accurately regulate four wheels brake force of vehicles which can well meet the requirement of antilock brake system (ABS).

The Electronic Stability Program (ESP), as a key actuator of traditional automobile braking system, plays an important role in the development of intelligent vehicles by accurately controlling the pressure of wheels. However, the ESP is a highly nonlinear controlled object due to the changing of the working temperature, humidity, and hydraulic load. In this paper, an accurate pressure control strategy of single wheel during active braking of ESP is proposed, which doesn’t rely on the specific parameters of the hydraulic system and ESP. First, the structure and working principle of ESP have been introduced. Then, we discuss the possibility of Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) control based on the mathematical model of the high-speed switching valve. Subsequently, the pressure building characteristics of the inlet and outlet valves are analyzed by the hardware in the Loop (HiL) experimental platform.

The vehicle pull problem is very important to driving safety. Major factors that may cause the pull problem related to tire include variations of geometric dimension (e.g. RPK) and stiffness (e.g. cornering stiffness, aligning stiffness), plysteer and conicity. In previous research, the influencing mechanism of these factors was well studied. But in fact, vehicle pull problem caused by tire is probabilistic. When we assemble four tires onto the car, there could be 384 different assembly arrangements. If there are significant differences among these four tires, there will also be significant differences in the influence of different tire assembly schemes on vehicle pull, which has not been systematically discussed in previous studies. If we want to evaluate the pull performance of all these arrangements by vehicle test, it will be a time consuming process which will take almost 24 working days, along with a high test expense.

Steering movement is the most basic movement of the vehicle, in the car driving process, the driver through the steering wheel has always been to control the direction of the car, in order to achieve their own driving intention. Four Wheel Steering (4WS) is an advanced vehicle control technique which can markedly improve vehicle steering characteristics. Compared with traditional front wheel steering vehicles, 4WS vehicles can steer the front wheels and the rear wheels individually for cornering, according to the vehicle motion states such as the information of vehicle speed, yaw velocity and lateral acceleration. Therefore, 4WS can enhance the handling stability and improve the active safety for vehicles.

For the purpose of predicting the interior noise of a passenger automobile at middle and high frequency, an energy finite element analysis (EFEA) model of the automobile was created using EFEA method. The excitations including engine mount excitation and road excitation were measured by road experiment at a speed of 120 km/h. The sound excitation was measured in a semi-anechoic chamber. And the wind excitation was calculated utilizing numeric computation method of computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The sound pressure level (SPL) and energy density contours of the interior acoustic cavity of the automobile were presented at 2000 Hz. Meanwhile, the flexural energy density and flexural velocity of body plates were calculated. The SPL of interior noise was predicted and compared with the corresponding value of experiment.

This paper presents an experimental study of the emission characteristics of a small Spark-Ignited, LPG engine. A single cylinder, four-stroke, water-cooled, 125cc SI engine for motorcycle is modified for using LPG fuel. The power output of LPG is above 95% power output of gasoline. The emission characteristics of LPG are compared with the gasoline. The test result shows that LPG for small SI engine will help to reduce the emission level of motorcycles. The HC and CO emission level can be reduced greatly, but NOx emissions are increased. The emission of motorcycle using LPG shows the potential to meet the more strict regulation.

An air-cooled, four-stroke, 125 cc electronic gasoline fuel injection SI engine for motorcycles is altered to burn ethanol fuel. The effects of nozzle orifice size, fuel injection duration, spark timing and the excess air/ fuel ratio on engine power output, fuel and energy consumptions and engine exhaust emission levels are studied on an engine test bed. The results show that the maximum engine power output is increased by 5.4% and the maximum torque output is increased by 1.9% with the ethanol fuel in comparison with the baseline. At full load and 7000 r/min, HC emission is decreased by 38% and CO emission is decreased 46% on average over the whole engine speed range. However, NOx levels are increased to meet the maximum power output. The experiments of the spark timing show that the levels of HC and NOx emission are decreased markedly by the delay of spark timing.

In order to study the influence of body flexibility on the truck ride comfort, a 4 DOF half vibration model of truck based on the motion synthesis between rigid body and body flexibility is established using elastic beam theory of equal section with both free ends. At the same time, a corresponding 2 DOF rigid vibration model is also built. The frequency response functions of system and response variables of two models are derived based on front wheel. The power spectral densities and the root mean square values of body acceleration, dynamic deflections and relative dynamic loads are obtained. By comparing the simulation results of rigid-elastic model and rigid model, it shows that body flexibility has a great impact on truck ride comfort and it cannot be ignored.

Since steering wheel torque feedback is one of the crucial factors for drivers to gain road feel and ensure driving safety, it is especially important to simulate the steering torque feedback for a driving simulator. At present, steering wheel feedback torque is mainly simulated by an electric motor with gear transmission. The torque response is typically slow, which can result in drivers’ discomfort and poor driving maneuverability. This paper presents a novel torque feedback device with magnetorheological (MR) fluid and coil spring. A phase separation control method is also proposed to control its feedback torque, including spring and damping torques respectively. The spring torque is generated by coil spring, the angle of coil spring can be adjusted by controlling a brushless DC motor. The damping torque is generated by MR fluid, the damping coefficient of MR fluid can be adjusted by controlling the current of excitation coil.

In this study, an experimental investigation was conducted using a direct injection single-cylinder diesel engine equipped with a test common rail fuel injection system to clarify how dimethyl ether (DME) injection characteristics affect the heat release and exhaust emissions. For that purpose the common rail fuel injection system (injection pressure: 15 MPa) and injection nozzle (0.55 × 5-holes, 0.70 × 3-holes, same total holes area) have been used for the test. First, to characterize the effect of DME physical properties on the macroscopic spray behavior: injection quantity, injection rate, penetration, cone angle, volume were measured using high-pressure injection chamber (pressure: 4MPa). In order to clarify effects of the injection process on HC, CO, and NOx emissions, as well as the rate of heat release were investigated by single-cylinder engine test. The effects of the injection rate and swirl ratio on exhaust emissions and heat release were also investigated.

To find out the main excitation sources of a bus floor's vibration, modal analysis and spectral analysis were respectively performed in the paper. First we tested the vibration modal of the bus's floor under the full-load condition, and the first ten natural frequencies and vibration modes were obtained for the source identification of the bus floor's vibration. Second the vibration characteristic of the bus floor was measured in an on-road experiment. The acceleration sensors were arranged on the bus's floor and the possible excitation sources of the bus, which includes engine mounting system, driveline system, exhaust system, and wheels. Then the on-road experiment was carefully conducted on a highway under the four kinds of test condition: in-situ acceleration, uniform velocity (90km/h, 100km/h, 110km/h, 120km/h), uniform acceleration with top gear, and stall sliding condition with neutral gear.

This study investigates the fundamental stiffness and damping properties of a self-damped pneumatic suspension system, based on both the experimental and analytical analyses. The pneumatic suspension system consists of a pneumatic cylinder and an accumulator that are connected by an orifice, where damping is realized by the gas flow resistance through the orifice. The nonlinear suspension system model is derived and also linearized for facilitating the properties characterization. An experimental setup is also developed for validating both the formulated nonlinear and linearized models. The comparisons between the measured data and simulation results demonstrate the validity of the models under the operating conditions considered. Two suspension property measures, namely equivalent stiffness coefficient and loss factor, are further formulated.

The powers generated by the skidding and slipping of a vehicle in unit time during driving are referred to as parasitic power. It has significant effects on wear on the tires, service life, and overall efficiency. However, existing methods to calculate parasitic power expressions that are not solvable in some cases, the reasonableness of the results of their calculations cannot be verified by experiments and the parameters of the loader cannot be calculated during the design of the vehicle. In this paper, we systematically analyze the mechanism of generation of parasitic power based on the differences in the radii of the tires of loaders. We innovatively propose a theoretical calculation method to calculate the wheel circumference parasitic work during the design of the loader. The results of experiments show that errors between the theoretical and experimental values of the wheel circumference parasitic work calculated under various working conditions were smaller than 5%.

A general principle scheme of IEHB (Integrated Electro-Hydraulic Brake system) is proposed, and the working principle of the system is simply introduced in this paper. Considering the structure characteristics of the hydraulic control unit of the system, a kind of time-sharing control strategy is adopted to realize the purpose of independent and precise hydraulic pressure regulation of each wheel brake cylinder in various brake conditions of a vehicle. Because of the strong nonlinear and time varying characteristics of the dynamic brake pressure regulation processes of IEHB, its comprehensive brake performance is mainly affected by temperature, humidity, load change, the structure and control parameters of IEHB, and so on.

A novel non-destroy repeatable-use impact theory based total cylinder sampling system has been established. This system is mainly composed of a knocking body and a sampling valve. The knocking body impacts the sampling valve with certain velocity resulting in huge force to open the sampling valve and most of the in-cylinder gas has been dumped to one sampling bag for after-treatment. The feasibility and sampling response characteristics of this impact theory based total cylinder sampling system were investigated by engine bench testing. Within 0 to 35°CA ATDC (Crank Angle After Top Dead Center) sample timing 50 percent to 80 percent of in-cylinder mass would be sampled, which was a little less compared with the traditional system. The half decay period of pressure drop was 10 to 20 degrees crank angle within 0 to 60°CA ATDC sample timing, which was about 2-3 times of the traditional system.

The incomplete combustion and misfire of diesel engine during starting result in unwanted white smoke. The histories of combustion and emission in different phases under different start conditions were studied in this paper. The optimization of the fuel injection control strategy under start conditions was performed. When the diesel engine is started under low temperature, the control strategy adapted to start the engine with a certain constant fuel mass injected per cycle, there may be misfire cycles in the initial period or in the transitional process, which is mainly caused by the mismatch between the fuel mass injected per cycle and the instantaneous engine speed. Therefore, an optimized control strategy was put forward, namely, the engine starts with high fuel mass injection in the first several cycles and then decreases step by step during the transitional period until it operates at idle condition. This strategy was validated to decrease significantly the misfire cycles.

The basic theory of statistical energy analysis (SEA) is introduced, a commercial heavy duty truck cab is divided into 35 subsystems applying SEA method, and a three dimensional SEA model of the commercial heavy duty truck cab is created. Three basic parameters including modal density, damping loss factor and coupling loss factor are calculated with analytical and experimental methods. The modal density of the regular wall plate of the cab is calculated with traditional formula. The damping loss factors of the regular and complicated plates are obtained using analytical method and steady energy stream method. Meanwhile, the coupling loss factors of structure-structure, structure-sound cavity, and cavity-cavity are also calculated. Four kinds of excitations are in the SEA model, including sound radiation excitation of engine, engine mount vibration excitation, road excitation and wind excitation.

This paper presents an investigation of cold starts based on a cycle-by-cycle control strategy in an LPG EFI engine. Experiments were carried out in a four-stroke, water-cooled, single cylinder, 125cc SI engine with an EFI system. Effects of the first injection pulse width and the first combustion cycle on the characteristics of the cold-start were analyzed based on the histories of transient engine speeds and cylinder pressures. The study focuses on how to realize the controllable ignition cycle and the single-cycle and multi-cycle combustions were tested based on the single starting injection pulse width. Test results show that the first combustion cycle has an important effect on HC emission and combustion stability of following cycles at cold-start. The injection pulse width is the key factor determining the characteristics of an ignition cycle during the cold-start.

The calibration of the electronic throttle unit and the pedal unit was made. Based on it, an electronic control system of electronic throttle was designed and installed on a 4G18 engine. Engine experiment was made especially for its transient working condition. Engine performance at transient working condition was investigated. The test results indicate that the optimum way of opening the throttle valve is to open the throttle valve to the target location at once, when 4G18 engine transit from 2000r/min to 3000r/min without load. And its optimum calibration for the electronic throttle control unit is made based on the test results. The control system, the experiment, the test results and the calibration were introduced in this paper.