Study on the performance of active front steering system

The performance of a steering system equipped with active front steering (AFS) device is investigated with the consideration of AFS intervention and a proposed dynamic model. Firstly, the kinematics and dynamics of AFS are illustrated based on the mechanism of AFS with planetary gear set and a detailed dynamic model. Furthermore, a basic control on the voltage of DC motor at AFS actuator is proposed. It is realized by a proportional controller that the input is the difference of desired steering ratio and a conventional gear ratio. Finally, two numerical simulations are carried out. One is on-center handling test to demonstrate the basic characteristics of AFS. The other simulation is to demonstrate the effects of vehicle speed, frequency of steering input and AFS intervention on steering system performance. It is shown that the proposed AFS dynamic model is capable to simulate dynamic performance of AFS. The effect of AFS intervention on turning efforts at hand steering wheel is inevitable and the turning comfort is deteriorated to some extent.     

Improved hot-stamping analysis of tubular boron steel with direct measurement of heat convection coefficient

There are two types of hot-stamping processes, direct and indirect, depending on the sequence of the heating, forming, and quenching steps and the method used for each step. In this study, an indirect hot-stamping process consisting of forming at room temperature, heating, and water quenching was applied to develop a coupled torsion beam axle. The analysis results indicated that the application of the heat convection coefficient is critical in the simulations and must take into account the temperature and specific location in the model to ensure the accuracy of the heating and quenching analysis. The heat convection coefficients used in the analysis were directly measured at various positions of the tube (e.g., outside, inside, and bending region) using thermocouples, and the final values were determined through correlation between the actual tests and numerical analysis. The experimental and simulated final deformed shape and temperature distribution were in good agreement.     

Fatigue life estimation of injection mold core using simulation-based approach

The purpose of this study is to present a simulation-based approach capable of predicting the fatigue life of a mold core with the help of CAE technology based on injection molding simulation, core stress analysis and fatigue life prediction. Injection molding simulation is performed in order to obtain the non-uniform pressure acting on a mold core due to the polymer melt flow during injection molding process. Subsequently, the melt pressure profile is used as loading condition for core stress analysis via one-way coupling technique. The lifetime of a mold core is then predicted by fatigue analysis with stress-life approach. For verification of simulation-based approach to the fatigue life prediction, tests were also performed.     

Development of estimation algorithms for vehicle’s mass and road grade

In controlling the longitudinal motion of electrified vehicles such as hybrid vehicles and PHEV (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles), the variation of the driving resistance loads (or driving loads) such as road grade and actual vehicle mass, is the most influential factor which limits the control performance. Measuring the driving load is not impossible, but it is costly since additional sensors have to be mounted on the vehicle. In this study, methods for estimating vehicle mass and road grade are designed to compensate for the driving loads. The proposed methods are verified using simulation tools and then evaluated experimentally.     

Highly reliable driving workload analysis using driver electroencephalogram (EEG) activities during driving

Traffic accidents are caused by various factors, which can be classified into human factors, vehicle factors and environmental factors. Recently, human factors have been drawing particular attention as efforts are being made to enhance the safety performance of vehicles and improve road conditions. Driving distraction caused by an increased driving workload is a representative human factor. Various studies in the past have attempted to quantify the driving workload by using EEG activities. However, they have failed to consider vibration properties generated from vehicle engines. A number of noise signals were included in brainwave signal processing, which resulted in a failure to obtain reliable outcomes. Thus, this study suggests driver EEG activities free of vehicle engine secondary vibration in order to develop a method that analyzes the driving workload with high statistical reliability. By using the analytical method developed in this study, standard values of driving workload for straight and left-turn driving that has statistical significance could be calculated. The analytical method for driving workload created by this study can be applied to HVI and road design.     

Dynamic analysis of energy storage unit of the hydraulic hybrid vehicle

A new configuration of hydraulic hybrid vehicle (HHV) was presented, which mainly consists of an engine, high-pressure accumulator, lower-pressure reservoir and hydraulic transformer (HT) connected to common pressure rail (CPR), and the working principle of hydraulic hybrid vehicle has been described to extend its energy-regenerated potential. Moreover, the mathematical models of the instantaneous pressure ratio of HT and the characteristic parameters of parallel and series accumulator (i.e. effective volume, specific energy, and charge-discharge efficiency) based on lumped parameters method were built, respectively. The simulation and experimental tests of dynamic characteristics of HT and accumulator were done, the result shows that the theoretical analysis was the same as the experimental results by comparing them in the curve trend, and the series accumulator was much superior to parallel accumulator in terms of pulsation damping of hydraulic transformer, that is the simulation results reasonably and appropriately.