Application of slim A-pillar to improve driver’s field of vision

The importance of vehicle safety cannot be exaggerated in today’s mobile societies. Many manufacturers, associates related to vehicles and universities make an effort to improve vehicle safety by developing new technologies, applying high strength steel to the body structure etc. However, the majority of these efforts are focused on decreasing injury. It is absolutely important to minimize injury, but a more important aspect is coping with vehicle accidents. That is, As undeniably important as it is to minimize potential injuries, it is critical that experts focus on developing ways to keep drivers out of situations likely to lead to crashes in the first place. The purpose of this paper is to determine what the most critical factor is when coping with an unfamiliar driving situation. The answer is to provide a wide-open field of vision, especially for the driver. The driver’s field of vision is obstructed by the vehicle’s A-pillar. To solve this, the A-pillar obstruction angle, which is the angle between the driver’s eyes and the A-pillar should be decreased. This paper purposes three-methods for decreasing this angle structurally and applying a slim A-pillar which is as the best solution to decrease the A-pillar obstruction angle and ensure the drivers field of vision at the same time     

Improvement of exhaust gas pressure’s utilization for compressing the intake air in diesel engine’s cylinders

In order to improve the economical and environmental performances of the Diesel engines, the present paper aims to bring to the forefront solutions to increase the efficiency of the supercharging process carried out by the aggregates with Comprex type pressure waves. One solution to this is to drive the Comprex, not by the supercharged engine as it currently happens, but by a DC motor. The speed of the electric motor is modified, by means of an electronic management system, depending on the speed and load of the Diesel engine. The paper presents the experimental results obtained during the investigation of a supercharged Diesel engine by the Comprex driven type according to the proposed solution.     

Improved optimal controller for start-up of amt trucks in consideration of driver’s intention

A linear-quadratic optimal controller is proposed for vehicle start-up, which is designed as a linear feedback form of the states and the measured (estimated) disturbances. The requirements of less friction loss and less driveline shock are represented by the weighting matrices of the cost function. The driver’s intension is also considered and the controller gains are adjusted on-line accordingly. The designed control strategy is tested on a complete powertrain simulation model. Through large amount of simulations, it is verified that the system is robust to the variations of driving conditions, such as variation of vehicle mass and road grade. It is also shown that the control performance is influenced greatly by the estimation error of engine torque and clutch torque, and the acceptable level of mean estimation error is about ±10%.     

Application of a self-tuning fuzzy PI–PD controller in an active anti-roll bar system for a passenger car

A fuzzy proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller has not been widely investigated for active anti-roll bar (AARB) application due to its unspecific mathematical analysis and the derivative kick problem. This paper briefly explains how the derivative kick problem arises due to the nature of the PID controller as well as the conventional fuzzy PID controller in association with an AARB. There are two types of controllers proposed in this paper: self-tuning fuzzy proportional-integral–proportional-derivative (STF PI–PD) and PI–PD-type fuzzy controller. Literature reveals that the PI–PD configuration can avoid the derivative kick, unlike the standard PID configuration used in fuzzy PID controllers. STF PI–PD is a new controller proposed and presented in this paper, while the PI–PD-type fuzzy controller was developed by other researchers for robotics and automation applications. Some modifications were made on these controllers in order to make them work with an AARB system. The performances of these controllers were evaluated through a series of handling tests using a full car model simulated in MATLAB Simulink. The simulation results were compared with the performance of a passive anti-roll bar and the conventional fuzzy PID controller in order to show improvements and practicality of the proposed controllers. Roll angle signal was used as input for all the controllers. It is found that the STF PI–PD controller is able to suppress the derivative kick problem but could not reduce the roll motion as much as the conventional fuzzy PID would. However, the PI–PD-type fuzzy controller outperforms the rest by improving ride and handling of a simulated passenger car significantly.     

Analysis of a special purpose vehicle’s behaviour after an edge drop-off onto a soft shoulder

The article concerns the dynamics of a four-axle 20 ton special purpose vehicle in the driver’s panicky defensive manoeuvre resulting from edge drop-off of wheels onto a soft shoulder. A calculation model in the PC-Crash software environment has been developed to include the complex mechanism of the soft soil response to the wheel movement. The analysis of the results indicates the danger manifested by strong wheels vibrations, instantaneous change of vehicle steerability characteristics and a high rate of increase of the yaw angle and vehicle pitch during braking with steered wheels turned. The calculations indicate an extremely adverse effect of the phase of vehicle oversteer which in the analysed motion of the vehicle lasts over 1.5 s. The calculations prove that in such a short time the driver has very little chance of any practical response to the non-typical behaviour of the vehicle which otherwise is, in general, understeered.     

Mathematical model validated by a crash test for studying the occupant’s kinematics and dynamics in a cars’ frontal collision

The aim of the paper was to determine the kinematic parameters that influence the occupant injury risk through a mathematical model. The developed model is a 2D model composed of 4 bodies (2 vehicles, thorax and head). The head and thorax are interconnected with a rotation joint and a torsion spring meant to stiffen the relative movement between the bodies. The thorax is connected with the vehicle body by a linear spring meant to simulate the seatbelt stiffness. The model was solved using Lagrange principle and the validation of the model was made through a crash test performed using the same initial conditions and comparing the obtained values of the displacement, velocity and acceleration parameters with the ones obtained with the mathematical model. The head and torso were chosen due to the fact that they are the common parts of the body that get injured, especially the head with the change of 80 % to cause fatal injury in car’s frontal collision. Once the model was validated, the stiffness of the seatbelt was modified in order to determine the behavior of the occupant in case of car frontal collisions. When the seatbelt stiffness was reduced, the occupant displacement and velocity increased, while by increasing the stiffness, these parameters decreased. The values of the developed model presented a high degree of similarity with the results obtained from the crash test with an error of 10 %. This model can be used by engineers to easily asses the occupant injury risk in case of vehicle frontal collisions.     

China’s commercial vehicle market to witness a new round of development phase

China’s auto industry started in the commercial vehicle field and it kept giving impetus to the auto market until 2004. Statistics from the CAAM show that during the 1998 to 2004 period, the average annual growth rate of the field was 14.38 percent, high…     

The Added Value of Accounting For Users’ Flexibility and Information on the Potential of a Station-Based One-Way Car-Sharing System: An Application in Lisbon,Portugal

Car-sharing systems are an alternative to private transportation whereby a person may use an automobile without having to own the vehicle. The classical systems in Europe are organized in stations scattered around the city where a person may pick up a vehicle and afterward return it to the same station (round trip). Allowing a person to drop off the vehicle at any station, called one-way system, poses a significant logistics problem because it creates a significant stock imbalance at the stations, which means that there will be times when users will not have a vehicle available for their trip. Previous mathematical programming formulations have tried to overcome this limitation by optimizing trip selection and station location in a city in order to capture the best trips for balancing the system. But there was one main limitation: The users were assumed to be inflexible with respect to their choice of a station, and held to use only the one closest to their origin and destination. If the user is willing to use the second or even the third closest station the user could benefit from using real-time information on vehicle stocks at each station and be able to select the one with available capacity. In this article we extend a previous model for trip selection and station location that takes that aspect into account by considering more vehicle pick-up and drop-off station options and then apply it to a trip origin–destination matrix from the Lisbon region in Portugal. Through the extended formulation we were able to conclude that user flexibility allied with having information on vehicle stocks increases the profit of the company, as people will go directly to a station with a vehicle available, thus making the use of the fleet more efficient. Observing the size of the stations resulting from the model, we also concluded that the effect of information is enhanced by large car-sharing systems consisting of many small stations.     

International Forum on the Development of China’s Auto Industry 2005 to be held in Tianjin in September

The Forum, jointly sponsored by CATARC, SAE China and Tianjin Economic and Development Area (TEDA), will be held from 24 to 25 Sept. After years of rapid development, the automotive industry has become more and more mature. To meet the demand of automakers and guided by relevant government departments, CATARC and SAE China have jointly organized a Forum, to offer an arena for the relevant organizations, businesses and participants home and abroad. The Forum is aimed at promoting t…     

Influence of the geometric parameters of the vehicle frontal profile on the pedestrian’s head accelerations in case of accidents

The goal of this paper is to determine how the geometry of the vehicle’s frontal profile is influencing the pedestrian’s head accelerations (linear and angular) in car-to-pedestrian accidents. In order to achieve this goal, a virtual multibody dummy of the pedestrian was developed and multiple simulations of accidents were performed using vehicles with different frontal profile geometry, from different classes. The type of accidents considered is characteristic for urban areas and occur at relatively low speed (around 30 km/h) when an adult pedestrian is struck from the rear and the head acceleration variation are the measurement of the accident severity. In the accident simulation 3D meshes were applied on the geometry of the vehicles, in order to define the contact surface with the virtual dummy, similar with real vehicles. The validation of the virtual pedestrian dummy was made by performing two crash-tests with a real dummy, using the same conditions as in the simulations. The measured accelerations in the tests were the linear and angular accelerations of the head during the impact, and these were compared with the ones from the simulations. After validating the virtual model of the car-to-pedestrian accident, we were able to perform multiple simulations with different vehicle shapes. These simulations are revealing how the geometric parameters of the vehicle’s frontal profile are influencing the head acceleration. This paper highlights the main geometric parameters of the frontal profile design that influence the head injury severity and the way that the vehicles can be improved by modifying these parameters. The paper presents an approach to determine the “friendliness” of the vehicle’s frontal profile in the car-to-pedestrian collision.     

Computational model for analyzing the kinematics and compliance characteristics of a commercial vehicle’s front suspension system

This paper develops a computational model that can analyze the kinematics and compliance characteristics of the front suspension of a commercial vehicle. This computational model is called the flexible multi-body dynamic model because it is developed by interfacing the finite element model of the multi-leaf spring with the dynamic model of the front suspension. In this paper, the bump mode and roll mode tests are performed with a suspension parameter measuring device (SPMD). An excitation load for creating the bump mode and roll mode motion is applied on the left and right tires slowly in in-phase and out-of-phase modes. In the test, wheel rate, toe angle change, caster angle change, and camber angle change, which together represent the wheel alignment, are measured along with the longitudinal and lateral wheel center loci which together represent the wheel center trajectory change. The reliability of the developed computational model is verified by comparing the simulation results with the SPMD test results. The developed flexible multi-body computational model will provide useful information on kinematics and compliance characteristics in the earliest stages of the commercial vehicle design process.     

6 key words in the new cooperation age of China’s new, integrated auto industry

The auto industry, in cooperation over the past 23 years, is embracing new changes. Various new forms are finding use there which used to be dominated by introduced technology, brand name or funds.     

Discerning the operational state of a vehicle’s distributed electronic systems from vehicle network traffic for use as a fault detection and diagnosis tool

This paper suggests a novel approach to finding faults in a vehicle’s electronic systems by monitoring the network traffic directly and generating statistical traits. The nature of the data in a CAN network is considered, and a case for the use of statistical analysis presented. Statistical traits extracted from the temporal behavior of network messages are investigated as a metric for fault detection. It is shown how this trait information can be extracted from network data, and how this information could be used for fault detection of an unknown fault on a CAN network. It is then demonstrated that combining multiple types of trait data can be used to correctly identify a fault once detected.     

Who uses smart card? Understanding public transport payment preference in developing contexts,a case study of Manila's LRT-1

The culture of “tingi-tingi” or sachet economy provides a strong backdrop to better understand the payment mode preference of the riding public in the Philippines. First, the use of single journey tickets (SJT) reflects the purchasing practices amongst the urban poor thereby affecting the promotion and uptake of public transport smart cards. Second, as a glocalization strategy, it can inform what, how, when, and why services that has global uptake can be tailored towards the realities of a differentiated, local market conditions.Categorical principal component analysis (CATPCA) is presented to determine the key variables explaining the likelihood of uptake of smart cards for public transport passengers in the Philippines. The Metro Manila Light Rail Transit Line 1 (LRT-1) presents an appropriate context to examine how the glocalization of smart cards can help improve the quality of public transport services, and to provide planning and policy recommendations on smart card uptake and integrated ticketing, with the end goal of improving public transport provision and management. LRT-1 alongside its change in management, also introduced a new smart card payment system. However, more than half continue to use single journey tickets.The model parameters are estimated using primary survey data collected from LRT-1 passengers. Transit smart card has been widely used around the world and effectively reduces waiting time for passengers who used to purchase paper tickets.The main results of the model reveal that: (1) only groups with high education background, stable income, or with stable job would likely to use smart card; (2) passengers with lower education level, lower income, or with unstable job prefer to use single journey ticket; and (3) the sachet economy is strongly associated with the purchasing practices amongst Filipinos, particularly the urban poor, hence may affect the promotion and uptake of public transit smart cards. These findings may inform changes to the introduction of alternative payment schemes and the planning of public transport policies that recognise the need for an effective glocalization strategy, paving the way towards improved public transport service and provision.