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Advanced Vehicle Technologies (AVT), a Ballarat Australia based company, has developed the World's first diesel to 100% LPG conversion for heavy haul trucks. There is no diesel required or utilized on the trucks. The engine is converted with minimal changes into a spark ignition engine with equivalent power and torque of the diesel. The patented technology is now deployed in 2 Mercedes Actros trucks. The power output in engine dynamometer testing exceeds that of the diesel (in excess of 370 kW power and 2700 Nm torque). In on-road application the power curve is matched to the diesel specifications to avoid potential downstream power-train stress. Testing at the Department of Transport Energy & Infrastructure, Regency Park, SA have shown the Euro 3 truck converted to LPG is between Euro 4 and Euro 5 NOx levels, CO2 levels 10% better than diesel on DT80 test and about even with diesel on CUEDC tests.

J I Case Company has produced four-wheel-drive agricultural tractors since 1964. In 1984 however, the flagship of the Case fleet changed hands. Rising labor costs and larger farming operations spearheaded the need for a more efficient larger tractor. January 1984 marked the introduction of the largest four-wheel-drive tractor in the history of Case, the 4994, a 400-gross engine horsepower tractor, Figure 1. Sheer horsepower alone however, would not meet the requirements of today's farming operations. Case Engineering realized that tomorrows tractors must have sufficient power to handle the wide variety of attachments available. They also realized that along with the unmatched power must come precise control of the attachment. These advancements in farming have required improvements to the tractor hydraulic system. This paper describes the hydraulic system of the 4994, Case's new flagship.

Over the past several years the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Standards Association has developed standards for the 5.9 GHz Dedicated Short Range Communications protocols, also known as Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments. These standards consist of IEEE 1609 as well as an amendment to the IEEE 802.11 standard or 802.11p. The 1609 standards were published for Trial Use and these as well as the 802.11p draft have been implemented in a variety of test beds to provide lessons learned and feedback into the standards working groups. Based on ongoing testing, the protocols display a strong capability to address the requirements of crash avoidance and transportation mobility applications. The corresponding test results provide information necessary to update the standards after the first trial phase as industry moves toward commercial implementations.

The story of Power Farming is the great saga of our times. It is a story of free enterprise, perseverance and endurance of the individual, of vision, idealism and cooperation among men, of the lightening of human toil and the release of millions of workers from farms to feed the ever hungry industrial revolution. By no means least, it is the story of producing food necessary to win two global wars, keep our allies alive and millions of the defeated enemy from starvation. FOREWARD By 1915, the Steam Traction Engine had attained its highest development. It was the forerunner, rather than the predecessor, of the farm tractor. The former was the instrument of expansion; the latter, the instrument of progress. The invention of the tractor, following by only sixteen years Otto's practical embodiment application of the Beau de Rochas power cycle to a heat engine, marked the advent of a new order - - the age of Power Farming.

A cartridge type pivotal pin and bushing joint has been patented and is being tested and refined both in the laboratory and on construction machinery. It features “dry lubricated” (Teflon) bearings which are assembled and sealed prior to installation. It is suitable for heavy unit loads and use under severe wear conditions, such as in crawler track chains and loader bucket pivotal pin joints. A brief history of U. S. manufactured track pin joints is included to show the progress in extending the service life of these devices.

In the truck industry there is a continuous demand to increase the efficiency and to decrease the emissions. To acknowledge both these issues a waste heat recovery system (WHR) is combined with a partially premixed combustion (PPC) engine to deliver an efficient engine system. Over the past decades numerous attempts to increase the thermal efficiency of the diesel engine has been made. One such attempt is the PPC concept that has demonstrated potential for substantially increased thermal efficiency combined with much reduced emission levels. So far most work on increasing engine efficiency has been focused on improving the thermal efficiency of the engine while WHR, which has an excellent potential for another 1-5 % fuel consumption reduction, has not been researched that much yet. In this paper a WHR system using a Rankine cycle has been developed in a modeling environment using IPSEpro.

This paper discusses controller development for an active, off-road vehicle suspension system. A brief review of electronic filters and their characteristics is used to provide insight on the difficulties of designing a control algorithm for negotiating hilly and rough terrain at higher speeds. Two controller designs are presented. One was designed by pole placement and causes the suspension response to approximate a Type 1 Chebychev filter. The other was designed using constrained optimization. A comparison and discussion of simulation results leads to the conclusion that the suspension should be adaptively or predictively controlled for arbitrary terrain and velocity conditions.

“Today, wearing parts are regularly subjected to abnormal loading conditions. They must be able to accept these conditions without failure. In continuous operations, unscheduled downtime greatly increases maintenance costs, not to mention the cost of lost production. White iron castings offer premium abrasion resistance for many of these applications, but are often not used due to the possibility of brittle failure and the difficulty of mechanical attachment. This paper discusses the properties and applications of a composite of martensitic white iron and mild steel. This laminate will accept medium to high impact without loss of service failure, and can be installed by mechanical means or with welded attachment.”

A Decision Network is an explicit model of the Thinking Breakdown Structure of any complex scientific, engineering, or societal challenge. Each node in the Decision Network represents a fundamental question that must be answered, i.e. a choice that demands a solution. A Decision Network provides an integrated Decision Management framework for any Systems Engineering effort that links business, technology and design choices. Effective Decision Management is the key to Systems Engineering success. This paper will provide an overview of a decision-centric approach to Systems Engineering built around Decision Networks. Lessons learned through the use of Decision Networks in other industries will be extrapolated for use in vehicle Systems Engineering.

The need to reduce the injury to pedestrians that are run over or pinned beneath a bus is an ongoing concern for transit authorities and other operators. Occasionally, a pedestrian will be run over by the right rear wheel while exiting the rear door. This accident occurs in various scenarios such as when people exit the bus and become entangled in the door grab bars, or when they fall between the curb and the bus while it approaches or departs. With all scenarios, the S-1 Gard acts similar to a cow catcher, pushing the fallen pedestrian out and away from the rear tire. This paper will: outline various incident scenarios, evaluate the S-1 Gard's performance in a city environment, review installation of the guard as well as its maintenance requirements. The purpose of this paper is to bring to the attention of transit authorities and shuttle operators the overall value of this device.

The Vehicle Energy Consumption calculation Tool (VECTO) is used for the official calculation and reporting of CO2 emissions of HDVs in Europe. It uses certified input data in the form of energy or torque loss maps of driveline components and engine fuel consumption maps. Such data are proprietary and are not disclosed. Any further analysis of the fleet performance and CO2 emissions evolution using VECTO would require generic inputs or reconstructing realistic component input data. The current study attempts to address this issue by developing a process that would create VECTO input files based as much as possible on publicly available data. The core of the process is a series of models that calculate the vehicle component efficiency maps and produce the necessary VECTO input data. The process was applied to generate vehicle input files for rigid trucks and tractor-trailers of HDV Classes 4, 5, 9 and 10.

As a non-predictive model of the scavenging process, a generalized thermodynamic model has been suggested. This model can give a thermodynamic description for any possible scavenging process. Having specified a history of the scavenging process, this model is suitable for all scavenging systems including cross, loop and uniflow scavenging schemes. For the simplified isobaric and isochoric model with respectively constant coefficients of intake and discharge proportions during different scavengine phases, analytical solutions for this model have been obtained. From these, all existing models with the isobaric and isochoric assumptions can be derived.

The use of instrumentation on agricultural equipment slowly evolved from human observation of the operation of the equipment to a level of instrumentation which parallels that found on automobiles, and shared that automotive plateau for approximately 40 years. It has now embarked on a path which differs from that of the automobile. These differences are now openly competitive within the agricultural industry in both the choice of display technology and in function selection. This paper reviews both the early and modern agricultural instrumentation along with some of the unique functions now being monitored.

The object of this paper is to review developments taking place in Europe on truck transmission design. The existing design principles used in synchronized mechanical transmissions are reassessed. A new approach where the main emphasis is given to synchronizer duty is described. The paper also discusses the logical extension of the use of stepped transmissions into semiautomatic versions and the possibilities of stepless transmissions.

The use of computer simulation of vehicle dynamics as a development tool has come into its own over the past few decades. “Simulated” testing on a computer makes possible a degree of control and repeatability that allows the automotive engineer to determine the influence of design variables on different aspects of dynamic performance in ways that would be difficult or impossible by experimental methods. One of the software tools receiving wide acceptance for simulating trucks and combination vehicles is Truck-Sim™. The attraction of this program arises in part from its foundation of truck modeling methods developed at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute over the past two decades, and the use of an advanced graphical user interface to make the software both easy to understand and easy to use by design and development engineers.

This is an assessment of United States High Speed Guided Transit (HSGT) systems policy, vision, goals, and magnetic levitation development and commercialization technology. It includes a historical review of past magnetic levitation vehicle developments, a review of the present status of MagLev trains, and an outline of future conventional (EML) Electro Magnetic Levitation for speeds under 400 km/h; and, (SC) Super Conductive (EDL) Electro Dynamic Levitation for subsonic speeds approaching 900 km/h. Magnetic levitation transit technology has been under development in America since the United States Congress passed the 1965 High Speed Guided Transit Act (HSGT) which authorized the Department of Transportation to fund HSGT projects. Since this initial effort focused attention on the potential of the magnetic levitation concept for very high speed transit applications, this technology has been an ongoing development in Europe and Japan.

The titanium alloy system offers a range of properties conducive to weight/space savings. These properties include high strength, low elastic modulus and low density, which uniquely suit them for spring applications. By utilizing titanium in various spring designs, suspension engineers can save up to 60% of the weight and 20-30% of the space for a comparable steel spring. The primary impediment to widespread titanium part production and use in the past was cost. A new low cost titanium alloy system designed specifically for suspension and drive train application has been tested and proved to limit this cost problem. Working with titanium in their suspension designs, engineers will save significant weight/space over comparable steel and aluminum components.

Review of various construction, equipment and organization factors considered in the design of new plant facility for fabrication of prototype earthmoving vehicles. Emphasis on eliminating existing problems and maximizing plant efficiency.

This paper provides a review of the solubility parameter theory and its application to predicting elastomer/fluid compatibility. Emphasis is placed on describing the theory and translating the results of swell data into a more easily understood method than has previously been used. Numerous solubility parameters arc presented as well as swell test details. The swell data results are then used to determine solubility parameters which, upon comparison with other fluid or elastomer solubility parameters, determine compatibility. This procedure is especially important because it enables the results of swell tests to be used to identify elastomer/fluid compatibility of molecularly complex fluid additives or special elastomer mixtures.

Recent research on carburized steels has demonstrated a correlation between the toughness properties of a carburized steel and the fatigue performance in combined load testing (high-cycle fatigue plus overload). The data presented suggest that, for applications where loads above the fatigue limit are encountered, both processing and alloying must be considered. Results from a number of investigations are reviewed to illustrate that high-cycle fatigue properties are controlled primarily by the processing, whereas toughness characteristics, such as resistance to random cyclic loading, are a result of the alloying.