Rule-based control of a semi-active suspension for minimal sprung mass acceleration: design and measurement

In this paper, a rule-based controller is developed for the control of a semi-active suspension to achieve minimal vertical acceleration. The rules are derived from the results obtained with a model predictive controller. It is shown that a rule-based controller can be derived that mimics the results of the model predictive controller and minimises vertical acceleration. Besides this, measurements on a test vehicle show that the developed rule-based controller achieves a real-world reduction of the vertical acceleration, which is in agreement with the simulations.     

One-dimensional model on fuel penetration in diesel sprays with gas flow

In diesel engine, spray penetration is usually changed by in-cylinder gas flow. Accurate prediction on diesel spray with gas flow is important to the optimal design of diesel fuel injection system. This paper presents a theory investigation focusing on the penetration of diesel spray with gas flow. In order to understand the effect of gas flow on the penetration of diesel spray, a one-dimensional spray model is developed from an idealized diesel spray, which is able to predict the spray behavior under different gas flow conditions. The ambient gas flow is simplified as ideal flow that has only constant flow velocity along x-axial and y-axial directions of spray. The x-axial and y-axial directions are respectively defined as along and vertical spray directions. The main assumption is that the y-axial direction gas flow has no effect on the penetration of spray along x-axial direction. The principles of conservation of mass and momentum are used in the derivation. Momentum of in-cylinder air flow is also taken into consideration. Validation of the model at stable condition is achieved by comparing model predictions with experimental measurements of diesel spray without gas flow from Naber's experiments. Furthermore, CFD simulations on penetration of diesel spray with gas flow were performed with the commercial code AVL-fire. The onedimensional model is validated by the penetration results with gas flow from CFD calculation. Results show that a reasonable estimation of the spray evolution can be obtained for both with and without ambient gas flow conditions.     

Robust inspection technique for detection of flatness defects of oil pans

This paper discusses two different methods for the detection of flatness defects present on the mounting surfaces of oil pans using laser-scanned point clouds. The first method involves registration, which is a widely used method in the field of 3D data inspection: scanned point clouds are registered with CAD data and the iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm is used for further comparison. The second method is our proposed method, a simple yet effective method for measuring the flatness of an oil pan mounting surface. The process is based on the construction of a reference plane on the scanned surface. The oil pan mounting surface is scanned by a 3D laser scanner, obtaining point cloud data that is then further processed to reduce noise. Using this processed data, a reference plane parallel to the direction of the mounting surface is defined at the mean position of the mounting surface. The direction of the reference plane is determined by the normal vector of the mounting surface. Construction of the reference plane is carried out by the singular value decomposition (SVD) technique. The deviation of the surface from the reference plane is measured by calculating the error distance between the points of the surface to the reference plane using the least-squares method.     

Pressure model based coordinated control of VGT and dual-loop EGR in a diesel engine air-path system

This paper describes a pressure-model-based coordinated control method of a variable geometry turbine (VGT) and dual-loop exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) in a diesel engine air-path system. Conventionally, air fraction or burnt gas fraction states are controlled for the control of dual-loop EGR systems, but fraction control is not practical since sensors for fractions are not available on production engines. In fact, there is still great controversy over how best to select control outputs for dual-loop EGR systems. In this paper, pressure and mass flow states are chosen as control outputs without fraction states considering the availability and reliability of sensors. A coordinated controller based on the simple control-oriented model is designed with practical aspects, which is applicable for simultaneous operations of high pressure (HP) EGR, low pressure (LP) EGR, and VGT. In addition, the controller adopts the method of input-output linearization using back-stepping to solve the chronic problems of conventional pressure-based controllers such as coupling effects between operations of HP EGR, and VGT. The control performance is verified by simulation based on the proven GT-POWER model of a heavy-duty 6000cc diesel engine air-path.     

Real-time empirical NO<Subscript>x</Subscript> model based on In-cylinder pressure measurements for light-duty diesel engines

This paper proposes a real-time empirical model of NO_x emissions for diesel engines. The proposed model predicts the level of NO_x emissions using an empirical model developed based on the thermal NO formation mechanism, the extended Zeldovich mechanism. Since it is difficult to consider the exact physical NO formation phenomena in real-time applications, the proposed algorithm adapts the key factors of the NO formation mechanism from the extended Zeldovich mechanism: temperature of the burned gas, concentration of the gas species, and combustion duration where NO is generated. These factors are considered in a prediction model as four parameters: exhaust gas recirculation rate (EGR rate), crank angle location of 50 % of mass fraction burned (MFB50), exhaust lambda value, and combustion acceleration. The proposed prediction model is validated with various steady engine experiments that showed a high linear correlation with the NO_x emission measured by a NO_x sensor. Furthermore, it is also validated for transient experiments.     

Resource-aware integration of AUTOSAR-compliant ECUs with an empirical wcet prediction model

This paper presents an integration method of AUTOSAR-compliant ECUs which can evaluate resource constraints in an early-stage of development. There are three types of resources for an ECU (timing, memory, and interface) which should be carefully managed for successful ECU integration. The proposed method consists of three steps: measurement, prediction, and evaluation. In the first step, a method to measure resource factors for AUTOSAR-compliant software architecture is introduced. Based on the method, a worst-case execution cycle of a runnable, memory section usages of a software component, and interface of legacy ECUs can be obtained. In the second step, the obtained factors are quantitatively predicted according to the architectural designs of the integration ECU. In the case of the timing resource, the worst-case execution time of the integration ECU can be precisely predicted by a proposed empirical model. In the last step, the resource constraints such as CPU, memory, network utilizations can be evaluated with predicted resource factors before implementation. The proposed method was applied to the integration of an in-house engine management system composed of two ECUs. The method successfully provided quantitative measures to evaluate architectural designs of three different integration scenarios.     

Integral transform solution for fluid force investigation of a flexible circular cylinder subject to vortex-induced vibrations

In the present paper, fluid force distribution of a long flexible cylinder subject to vortex-induced vibrations is investigated by Generalized Integral Transform Technique (GITT). This method is using experimental response data as input, and then implementing GITT to transfer the governing differential equations to ordinary differential equations. Therefore, the selection of truncation order could be analyzed to avoid the error induced by the high-mode response. Once each mode contribution of fluid force is obtained, the analytical inversion transfer recovers the fluid force. An experiment was carried out in a towing tank and the experimental response was accurately measured and used as input, then GITT was performed to calculate the fluid force distribution of the long flexible cylinder. The comparison between the numerical results from GITT and the experimental results from load cell verified the capability and availability of the proposed method. If one can use this method for lower modes, then one certainly can extend the method for higher modes. Two experimental cases from the literature were evaluated and good agreement was obtained based on the spatio-temporal evolutions of the lift coefficient and the mode numbers. Since this method is easy to implement, it could be an alternative method to investigate fluid force of such slender structures.     

Experimental study on piston- and sloshing- mode moonpool resonances

An experimental study was performed on the piston- and sloshing-mode moonpool resonances of offshore structures. Two different geometries were considered to investigate the flow characteristics in a plain moonpool and a moonpool with a cofferdam. To examine the efficiency of a cofferdam for reducing the flow in a moonpool, three cofferdam geometries were tested. The plain moonpool presented violent flows as a result of the piston- and sloshing-mode resonances. However, the moonpool with the cofferdam introduced violent sloshing waves instead of the ascent and descent of the water column in the piston-mode moonpool resonance. Among three different cofferdam geometries, the model with a right triangle facing to the left on the top of the cofferdam was most effective in reducing the flow in the moonpool when compared with the other models.