Design of Integrated Chassis Control logics for AFS and ESP

The performance of most electronic chassis control systems in the past has been optimized individually. Recently, a great research effort has been dedicated to the integration of chassis control systems in an effort to improve the vehicle performance. This involves orchestration of individual control modules so that they can jointly contribute to the enhancement of their control effect. In this research, two integrated control logics for AFS (Active Front Steering) and ESP (Electronic Stability Program) have been developed. Of the two logics, one uses a supervisor that rules over the individual modules. The other logic uses a CL (Characteristic Locus) method, which is a frequency-domain multivariable control technique. The two logics have been tested under various driving conditions to investigate their control effects. The results indicate that the proposed integrated control logics can yield vehicle performance that is superior to that of the individual control modules without any integration scheme.     

大众汽车公司的机械式G型增压器

本文介绍了德国大众汽车公司设计、生产的采用螺旋推进压气原理的工作的Ｇ型增压器，对其原理、结果及应用作了详细的分析说明。     

Analysis of an automotive ground system based on its steady-state model

As more electrical equipment is installed and larger currents are required in vehicles, the automotive ground system becomes more important to guarantee the stable operation of the equipment and efficient power consumption. In this paper, an automotive ground system is analyzed in a steady-state condition, and a simulation model for estimating its ground voltage distribution is described. The automotive ground system is divided into an engine compartment ground and a body ground, and it is modeled as an equivalent resistor network, which is suitable for simulation. By using the developed model, ground voltages are simulated and measurements are taken with a real car. A comparison of the simulation and measurement results shows good agreement, and the validity of the model is confirmed. Then, the factors that dominate the ground voltage level are discussed.     

风机基本工作原理和电能变换系统

综述了风机电能变换系统.首先论述了实现风机能量变换的基础,考虑了电气系统的需求.然后描述了3种变换系统(恒速、变速双馈式异步发电机和变速直驱式发电机)的优点和缺点.其次简单叙述了所应用的电力电子变换器.最后,讨论了可选择的发电机系统和其发展趋势.发展趋势很明显倾向于变速系统.越来越多的双馈式异步发电机系统安装了应对电网故障的装置.对于直驱式风机,径向永磁同步发电机比电励磁同步发电机更便宜且效率更高.发电机的电压等级可期望提高到约5 kV.     

Effects of end coils on the natural frequency of automotive engine valve springs

In this paper, we present a method for estimating the natural frequencies of various engine valve springs such as constant pitch, two-step variable pitch, three-step variable pitch, and progressive springs. Since a valve spring’s surging amplitude is magnified when the spring’s natural frequency coincides with the frequency of the cam profile harmonic components, estimating the natural frequency of the spring is the first step in predicting valve spring surging phenomena. A new method for calculating the valve spring’s natural frequency is proposed in this paper that considers the end coil effect. This method predicts not only the natural frequency of a helical spring at a fixed number of active turns, but also the change in the natural frequency as the spring is compressed. The experimental results demonstrate that nonlinear characteristics of engine valve springs can be predicted from the given initial pitch curves.     

Prediction of vibrating forces on meshing gears for a gear rattle using a new multi-body dynamic model

An efficient multibody dynamic model was developed to predict the vibrating transmitted gear forces of loaded and unloaded pairs of helical gears simultaneously at all speeds. The model can also calculate the bearing forces of a manual transmission that, in turn, may be converted to rattling noises. The bending of meshing gear teeth and torsional flexibility of transmission shafts were considered and embodied effectively in the multibody dynamic model by calculating the tooth bending stiffness and adding a torsion spring on a shaft section between two gears, respectively. The reactive forces on teeth and bearings were calculated and compared using three different models that were developed for this study — an equivalent model, a rigid-body model, and a frequency-based model. The equivalent model took only 58% computation time, compared to the frequency-based method, even though the two showed very similar results.     

Design of conformal cooling channels for an automotive part

The cooling system plays a crucial role in determining the productivity and quality of an injection molding process. With the current growth of Solid Freeform Fabrication (SFF) techniques, mold designers have been striving for not only improvement in cooling system performance but also for a method to do so automatically. In this paper, a method is proposed for developing a conformal cooling system that facilitates uniform cooling over the entire mold surface with minimum cycle time. Based on the temperature distribution after the filling stage, the mold surface is split into zones which will be cooled by optimized subconformal channels obtained from the optimization process. The optimization process in which the objective function is stated as minimization of the cooling time with boundaries ensuring a realistic design will optimize the cooling system layout in terms of cooling channel size and location. Finally, all subcooling channels are combined to generate the entire conformal cooling system for the injection mold.     

Interior sound field refinement of a passenger car using modified panel acoustic contribution analysis

Panel acoustic contribution analysis (PACA) is a practical engineering tool for the reduction of interior structure-borne noise in passenger cars. In this study, the current PACA method has been improved for sound field refinement of the entire interior. Two new parameters, the “acoustic contribution sum” and the “total sound field contribution”, are introduced to analyze the interior sound field characterized with multiple field points and sound pressure peaks, and to evaluate the integrated acoustic contributions of auto body panels. In addition, a systematic methodology for automotive interior sound field refinement is also proposed on the basis of the modified PACA method. An example of a passenger car model demonstrates the application of the sound-field-refinement methodology and shows the advantage of using damping layers at optimum locations on the auto body. The example also shows that the modified PACA method has practical significance for refining the interior sound field and decreasing added mass in accord with the trend towards lightweight auto bodies.     

HCCI combustion characteristics during operation on DME and methane fuels

The Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) engine has attracted much interest because it can simultaneously achieve high efficiency and low emissions. However, the ignition timing is difficult to control because this engine has no physical ignition mechanism. In addition, combustion proceeds very rapidly because the premixed mixture ignites simultaneously at multiple locations in the cylinder, making it difficult to increase the operating load. In this study, an HCCI engine was operated using blended test fuels comprised of dimethyl ether (DME) and methane, each of which have different ignition characteristics. The effects of mixing ratios and absolute quantities of the two types of fuel on the ignition timing and rapidity of combustion were investigated. Cool flame reaction behavior, which significantly influences the ignition, was also analyzed in detail on the basis of in-cylinder spectroscopic measurements. The experimental results revealed that within the range of the experimental conditions used in this study, the quantity of DME supplied substantially influenced the ignition timing, whereas there was little observed effect from the quantity of methane supplied. Spectroscopic measurements of the behavior of a substance corresponding to HCHO also indicated that the quantity of DME supplied significantly influenced the cool flame behavior. However, the rapidity of combustion could not be controlled even by varying the mixing ratios of DME and methane. It was made clear that changes in the ignition timing substantially influence the rapidity of combustion.     

Improved method for analyzing automotive transmission parts (shaft/gear) manufactured using the warm shrink fitting process

There are three sub-processes associated with the assembly of an automobile transmission: heat fitting, shrink fitting, and combination fitting. In the heat fitting stage, the gear is heated to a specified temperature and then squeezed towards the outer diameter of the shaft. The stress of the heat-fitted gear depends on the yield strength of the gear. In the shrink fitting process, the gear is typically squeezed towards the shaft at room temperature using a press. An alternate method, known as warm shrink fitting, heats the already warm gear and safely squeezes it toward the shaft. The warm shrink fitting process for automobile transmission parts is becoming more commonplace, but the additional heating can cause the dimensions of the assembled parts (shaft/gear) to change with respect to both the outer diameter and the profile of the gear. As a result, there may be additional noise and vibration between gears. To address these problems, we analyzed the warm shrink fitting process using the contact pressure caused by fitting interference between the outer diameter of the shaft and the inner diameter of the gear, fitting temperature, and the profile tolerance of the gear as design parameters. In this study, a closed form equation for predicting the contact pressure and fitting load is proposed. This equation is used to develop an optimization technique for the warm shrink fitting process. The reliability of the model was verified using experimental results measured in the field, and FEM with thermal-structural coupled field analysis. Actual loads measured in the field showed good agreement with the results obtained by theoretical and finite element analysis, and expansion of the outer diameters of the gears agreed well with the results.