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The need for light-weighting of automotive structures has spurred on a tremendous amount of interest in and development of low cost carbon fiber composite materials and manufacturing. This presentation provides a description of the commercial carbon fiber concept compared to traditional aerospace and specialty carbon fiber products. A specific update is presented on the development and commercialization of new low cost carbon fiber based on lignin / PAN precursor technology. The second focus of the presentation is on carbon fiber composite manufacturing processes, including carbon SMC, RTM, prepregs, and thermoplastic processes. Advantages and disadvantages of these processes are discussed, especially related to low cost manufacturing. Presenter George Husman, Zoltek Companies Inc.

When vehicles share certain information wirelessly via Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC), they enable a new layer of electronic vehicle safety that, when needed, can generate warnings to drivers and even initiate automatic preventive actions. Vehicle location and velocity provided by Global Navigation Systems (GNSS), including GPS, are key in allowing vehicle path estimation. GNSS is effective in accurately determining a vehicle's location coordinates in most driving environments, but its performance suffers from obstructions in dense urban environments. To combat this, augmentations to GNSS are being contemplated and tested. This testing has been typically done using a reference GNSS system complimented by expensive military-grade inertial sensors, which can still fail to provide adequate reference performance in certain environments.

In any new aircraft development program there are many important design decisions that determine profitability potential. The key to making new aircraft profitable is to design features that will command more money than the cost to provide them within the market's ability to absorb them. The business model in this paper shows how to predict or find: 1) the costs to provide various aircraft features; 2) the values that aircraft buyers place on these features; 3) the amount of money that buyers have to commit to them, 4) the open spaces in the market in which to place new designs and 5) the predicted profits from new designs. In this process, this paper extends previous work on the law of value and demand, which states that attributes determine value; value determines price; and that price determines demand. This four-dimensional, non-negative system hosts a business model that describes the features needed to enable aircraft designs to go from concepts to profitable assembly lines.

The increasing complexity of aerospace products and programs and the growing competitive pressure is facilitating the aggregation of small, medium and large enterprises of certain geographical regions into more integrated and collaborative entities (clusters). Clusters are by their same nature formed by heterogeneous companies, with huge differences not only in size but also for their core competences: such a diversity is a strength of the cluster, but it also increases its complexity. The purpose of this paper is to describe a benchmarking methodology that can be adopted to assess the performances of companies belonging to a cluster from different perspectives: economics and financials, competitive differentiators, specific know how, business strategies, production and logistic effectiveness, quality of core and supporting processes.

The growing need for an efficient worldwide airspace system management, generated by an increasing traffic load, requires new capabilities for air-ground data communication technologies. In order to cope with these requirements, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), EUROCONTROL, and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) have jointly made specific recommendations for candidate technologies for the airport surface communication network. In the SESAR project, the Aeronautical Mobile Airport Communication System (AeroMACS) technology is being developed in such a way to provide next generation broadband and wireless data communications for airport surface applications (i.e. Air Traffic Control ? ATC, Airline Operational Communications ? AOC, and surface vehicles services).

Currently, two consolidated aftertreatment technologies are available for the reduction of NOx emissions from diesel engines: Urea SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction) systems and LNT (Lean NOx Trap) systems. Urea SCR technology, which has been widely used for many years at stationary sources, is becoming nowadays an attractive alternative also for light-duty diesel applications. However, SCR systems are much more effective in NOx reduction efficiency at high load operating conditions than light load condition, characterized by lower exhaust gas temperatures.

At the end of 2006, two MTorres engineers visited the plant of Airbus UK in Filton receiving a new challenge: Find a more efficient way to manufacture Carbon Fiber Spars for the new A350 program. The range of possibilities were wide: manual infusion methods (RTM, RIM, RFI...), Automatic Taping & hot forming, or the new technology proposed, Fiberplacement or AFP. Two (2) options were considered: hot forming+ATL and AFP (both using prepeg technology.) The usage of a flat lay-up + hot forming technology was used in the only Airbus program that used carbon fiber for the wing manufacturing so far, the A400M. The expected greater complexity of A350 spar created doubts on the feasibility of using the above process, while the AFP technology, consisting of laying up directly on the final shape of the spar, also raised questions of technical feasibility, apart from the economic ?business case?, in case the productivity of the cell was not big enough. A ?Spar team?

Multicore processor are well established in classical and tablet personal computers for some year. Such processors use more then one central core for computation and allow to integrate more computational power with smaller costs. However more than 90% of all processors worldwide are not placed in classical IT but are empedded in bigger systems like in modern vehicles or airplanes. Such systems face a very high demand in terms of safety, security an reliability which hinders the use of multicores in such systems. The funded project ARAMiS faces these demands and has the goal to enable the usability of multicore systems in the domains automotive and avionics, as well as later also railway. ARAMiS is the basis for higher traffic safety, traffic efficiency and comfort.

Future fuel economy targets represent a significant challenge to the automotive industry. While a range of technologies are in research and development to address this challenge, they all bring additional cost and complexity to future products. The most cost effective solutions are likely to be combinations of technologies that in isolation might have limited advantages but in a systems approach can offer complementary benefits. This presentation describes work carried out at Ricardo to explore Intelligent Electrification and the use of Stratified Charge Lean Combustion in a spark ignition engine. This includes a next generation Spray Guided Direct Injection SI engine combustion system operating robustly with highly stratified dilute mixtures and capable of close to 40% thermal efficiency with very low engine-out NOx emissions.

It is a challenge to write a good motor specification. Typical spec. problems are omitted or ambiguous requirements, or overly tight tolerances that drive up cost but not value. These problems create hidden penalties in cost, performance, reliability, and development time. This presentation will describe common problems in traction motor specifications and associated penalties, as well as recommendations to avoid them. Topics will include spec.?s for demagnetization, mechanical considerations, torque ripple, performance, and others. Presenter David A. Fulton, Remy Inc.

Sensing exhaust gas temperature is a key component in diesel after treatment systems for both control and diagnostics. Accuracy varies significantly depending upon the sensing technology and implementation in the system. Prior published work has demonstrated that resistance based temperature sensors are not able to achieve the system accuracy required for advanced diagnostics over the life of the emission system. This presentation will show that it is feasible to achieve better than �10�C end of life system accuracy by means of active thermocouple technology. Results from tests at Michigan Technological University will be used to illustrate diagnostic uncertainty related to the application of temperature sensors and a specific DOC/DPF example will be used to show the benefits of accurate temperature based diagnostics. Presenter D. P. Culbertson, Watlow Gordon

Moir� method is useful to measure the shape and the whole-field distributions of displacement and strain of structures. There are many kinds of moir� methods such as geometric moir� method, sampling moir� method, Fourier transform moir� method, moir� interferometry, shadow moir� method and moir� topography. Grating method analyzing directly deformation of a grating without any moir� fringe pattern is considered as an extended technique of moire method. Phase analysis of the moire fringe patterns and the grating patterns provides accurate measurements of shapes or displacement and strain distributions. Some applications of these moir� methods and grating methods to dynamic shape and strain distribution measurements of a rotating tire, sub-millimeter displacement measurements from long distance for landslide prediction, real-time shape measurements with micro-meter order accuracy, etc. are shown. Presenter Yoshiharu Morimoto, Moire Institute Inc.

With the growing use of carbon fiber composite structure in Aircraft Manufacturing, the challenge of drilling carbon fiber stacked with Titanium has become a focus point. Due to the abrasive nature of the carbon fiber (CF), cutting tool life is relatively short when drilling carbon fiber stalked with Titanium. A common drill wear indicator is exit burr formation in the Titanium. As drilling tools wear due to the abrasive nature of the CF, the exit burr in the in the Titanium increases. This study seeks to understand the factors that lead to tool wear and exit burr formation. A correlation may be made relating drilling thrust forces with exit burr formation. Different cutting tools geometries and materials are studied using a high speed camera to attempt to understand the factors influencing exit burr formation. Findings are optimized and tested. Decreasing exit burr in the drilling of CF and Titanium may increase tool life thereby reducing tool costs to airframe manufacturers.

In recent years, all major microprocessor manufacturers are transitioning towards the deploymenet of multiple processing cores on every chip. These multi-core architectures represent the industry consensus regarding the most effective utilization of available silicon resources to satisfy growing demands for processing and memory capacities. Porting off-the-shelf software capabilities to multi-core architectures often requires significant changes to data structures and algorithms. When developing new software capabilities specifically for deployment on SMP architectures, software engineers are required to address specific multi-core programming issues, and in the ideal, must do so in ways that are generic to many different multi-core target platforms. This talk provides an overview of the special considerations that must be addressed by software engineers targeting multi-core platforms and describes how the Java language facilitates solutions to these special challenges.

A significant step is achieved on the flight control actuation system toward the more electrical aircraft through the Airbus A380, A400M and the A350 development phase ongoing. The A380/A400M/A350 features a mixed flight control actuation power source distribution, associating electrically powered actuators with conventional FlyByWire hydraulic servocontrols. In the scope of the preparation of the future Airbus Aircraft, this paper presents the perspectives of the use of the EMA technologies for the flight control systems in the more electrical aircraft highlighting the main technical challenges need to treat: jamming susceptibility, ?on board? maintenance reduction, Operational reliability increase, power electronics and power management optimization, and regarding the environmental constraints, the predicted performances; the benefits associated to the optimized utilization of on-board power sources.

Using pressure sensitive adhesive tapes to achieve economy and efficiency in automotive assembly

The BMW Group has introduced electric cars to the market with the MINI E already in 2009. The next step will be the launch of the BMW ActiveE in 2011, followed by the revolutionary Mega City Vehicle in 2013. The presentation will explain the BMW Group strategy for implementing sustainable mobility. A focus will be emobility, the use of carbon fiber and the holistic sustainability approach of BMW Group?s project i. Reference will be made to the research results of the MINI E projects in the US and in Europe. Presenter Andreas Klugescheid, BMW AG

As the need to develop better and less expensive batteries for automotive applications continues, we will likely need to examine potential tradeoffs between enhanced performance and costs. In particular, the choice of cathode materials automatically involves changes in performance and material costs. We will examine some of the possible cathode materials for use in next-generation battery packs, and the financial implications regarding those materials. Presenter Jon Hykawy, Byron Captial Markets

Propane autogas, the world?s third most-used engine fuel, powers vehicles, transit buses, and now school buses. Blue Bird has recently launched the Next Generation Vision type C school bus, powered by a ROUSH CleanTech liquid propane autogas fuel system and a Ford 6.8L V10 engine. The bus reduces operating costs by up to 40%, greenhouse gas emissions by up to 24%, and maintains the factory horsepower, torque, and towing capacity ratings. Learn about how school districts are saving over $.30 / mile using this clean, domestically-produced fuel. Presenter Brian Carney, Roush CleanTech.

This article characterizes the special features of drilling of CFRP/Titanium and -Aluminium stacks. Simplified theoretic models will show how CFRP/Titanium stacks should be machined without scratches and burn marks contacting carbon. Low axial forces and smart chip removal technology are the main characteristics of the drilling tool technology, optimized to reach H8 quality in one shot operation. Presenter Peter Mueller-Hummel, Cutting Tools Inc.