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The evolution of engine technology has so far seen the most beneficial side of progress in the fields of transportation, agriculture, and mobility. With the advent of innovation, there is also an impact on our environment that needs to be balanced. This is where fuels like CNG, LPG, LNG, etc. outperform conventional fossil fuels in terms of pollution & operational cost. This paper enlightens on the use of innovative dual-fuel technology where diesel & CNG fuels are used for combustion simultaneously inside the combustion chamber. Dual fuel system adaptation for farm application ensures self-reliance of the farmer where he can generate Bio-CNG to use the renewable fuel for farming making him less dependent on conventional fossil fuel thus promoting a green economy. The dual-fuel system is adapted to the existing in-use diesel engine with minimum modifications. This makes it feasible to retrofit a CNG fuel system on an existing diesel engine to operate it on dual fuel mode.

Real Driving Emission (RDE) norms have changed the way vehicles are required to be calibrated and developed. This has moved the legislative requirements from predictable lab conditions to more realistic, real world conditions. Current Indian legislation allows certification for Heavy Duty (HD) applications on engine level and therefore decoupled from vehicle and the real world scenarios such as uncertainty and randomness in driver behavior, traffic conditions, road profiles, ambient conditions etc. which are not captured. Upcoming RDE legislation to be implemented in year 2023, has made it necessary to integrate engine with vehicle to consider the impact of various parameters on engine operating points and therefore on tail pipe emissions. This paper focusses upon the methodology developed using RDE cycle generator tool (RCG) for generating on-road parameters which influences the zone of engine operation and resulting emission levels.

Modal analysis is a specialized tool which has been used for many years to reliably estimate various parameters such as natural frequency, mode shape and damping. Since these parameters have direct relevance to the behavior of any component or structure and the resultant vibrations, the methods used for evaluation of these have been taken up as a part of this project. MATLAB is a platform that serves analysis purpose and offers many advantages over dedicated, menu driven systems. Open function assure flexibility and possibility to modify functions for specific needs and also providing traceability and quality assurance. The current paper targets to make a comparative evaluation of various modal parameter estimators using existing MATLAB tools for determining modal parameters for simple structures. FRF measurements on simple structures are carried out and the data is processed using MATLAB run parameter estimators.

Passenger vehicles are used as one of the frequently used and versatile mode of transport. Commercial buses cater to short to long distance travel for city as well as highway applications. Thus, passenger ride comfort becomes paramount for the salability of the vehicle. Generally, it is observed that the rear seat experiences the worst ride comfort characteristics due to rear overhang and pitching characteristics of buses. Therefore the objective of this project is to improve the rear seat vibrations of passenger bus by tuning damper characteristics. Shock absorbers, being a low cost and easily interchangeable component is tuned first before optimizing other suspension parameters. The methodology is as follows: first, a 4 degree of freedom mathematical model is created on MATLAB Simulink R2015a environment. Time domain data is obtained by road load data analysis and used as an input for the mathematical model.

This paper discusses the test setup and methodology required to validate complete lift axle assembly for simulating the real time test track data. The correlation of rig vs track is discussed. The approach for reduction of validation time by eliminating few of the non-damaging tracks/events, its correlation with real life condition is discussed, and details are presented. With increased competition, vehicle development time has reduced drastically in recent past. Bench test procedure using accelerated test cycle discussed in this paper will help to reduce development time and cost. Process briefed in this paper can also be used for similar test specification for other structural parts or complete suspension system of heavy commercial vehicles.

Automobile industry is facing challenges in the field of technological innovation and achieving minimum Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) despite rise in fuel prices. To overcome these challenges is certainly a challenging task. In doing so, automobile sector is mainly focused on passenger safety, comfort, reliability, meeting stringent emission norms, and above all reducing the vehicle fuel consumption. Referring to the Paris climate agreement, and India’s commitment to reduce the CO2 intensity by 33% - 35% by 2030 below the 2005 levels [1], it is imperative to lay down strong policies and procedure to curb the fuel consumption to contribute for reduction in carbon foot print and oil imports. Transportation sector is majorly responsible for the GHG Emission of which the CO2 emission from commercial vehicles is nearly 73% [2], although the total sales of commercial vehicles are around 4% of cumulative vehicle sales.