Experimental Investigation of Impacts of Injection Timing and Pressure on Combustion and Particulate Matter Emission in a Spray-Guided GDI Engine

A detailed investigation of the impact of injection timing and injection pressure on combustion and particles of a spray-guided GDI engine was conducted, under different engine operating conditions. The results indicated that, more proportion of large particles were emitted when increasing engine load, and the peak of accumulation mode particles moved toward smaller size when rising engine speed. With retarding the injection timing, the in-cylinder pressure and heat release rate rose first and then dropped at 2000 rpm, but they continuously rose at lower or higher speed conditions. The total particles concentration curves at all cases showed a trend of U-shape, and the corresponding timing of the lowest particles concentration advanced as the engine speed or load increased. The minimum value of emitted particles first rose and then fell when increasing load at 2000 rpm conditions, and it continuously rose when increasing speed at 40 Nm conditions. Generally, injection pressure did no sensitively affect combustion process except that it showed a relatively strong impact at low load conditions. However, particulate matter could be effectively inhibited by elevating fuel pressure from 5.5 to 11.5 MPa at all cases. In detail, the total particles concentration continuously fell at low speed and mid speed-high load cases, but it showed a rose trend when further increase fuel injection pressure at mid speed-low load and high-speed conditions.     

Transient Dynamic Characteristics of a Non-Pneumatic Mechanical Elastic Wheel Rolling Over a Ditch

The transient dynamic characteristic of a tire, which has a significant effect on vehicle handling stability and ride comfort, is difficult to study in detail because of its highly non-linear behavior. In this study, the transient dynamic characteristics of a non-pneumatic wheel, called the mechanical elastic wheel (MEW), which was rolling over a ditch were investigated by the explicit dynamic finite element (FE) method. A three-dimensional FE model of MEW considering geometric nonlinearity, material nonlinearity and large contact deformation between the wheel and the road, was established. For the validation of the accuracy and reliability of the FE model of MEW, the simulation and the experimental results of the radial stiffness and footprint of MEW were compared and analyzed. A dynamic simulation of the validated FE model of MEW rolling over a ditch was conducted using the ABAQUS/Explicit program. The equivalent stress and the contact stress generated during the process of the rolling MEW impacting the ditch were studied in detail. The effect of the rolling speed on the transient dynamic characteristics was also analyzed based on the simulation results. The simulation results could provide guidance for the optimization of the MEW structure and vehicle dynamics.     

Slope Shift Strategy for Automatic Transmission Vehicles Based on the Road Gradient

Motivated by the development of high-precision digital maps for advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) in recent years, this study provides a new approach to solve the problems of the conventional automatic transmission vehicle travelling on sloping roads. Based on vehicle dynamics, shift problems on hilly roads are analyzed. A novel intelligent shift strategy is proposed, which consists of a dynamic shift schedule for the uphill, a safety shift schedule for the downhill, and a comprehensive economical shift schedule for the gentle slopes. A set of driver-in-loop co-simulation tests was conducted in a driving simulator that is equipped with a MATLAB/Simulink dynamics simulation platform. The test results verified the effectiveness of the new intelligent shift strategy. With the road information provided by a high-precision digital map, busy shifting can be eliminated, and improved dynamic performance can be achieved for a vehicle travelling on the uphill roads; undesired upshift can be prevented, and engine traction resistance can be used to relieve the load of braking system when a vehicle travelling on the downhill roads; also, fuel consumption can be reduced for a vehicle travelling on a gently sloped road. Consequently, this novel intelligent shift strategy offers a reliable and effective solution for improving a vehicle’s driving performance on a hilly road.     

Gaussian Process Regression Feedforward Controller for Diesel Engine Airpath

Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) provides emerging modeling opportunities for diesel engine control. Recent serial production hardwares increase online calculation capabilities of the engine control units. This paper presents a GPR modeling for feedforward part of the diesel engine airpath controller. A variable geotmetry turbine (VGT) and an exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) valve outer loop controllers are developed. The GPR feedforward models are trained with a series of mapping data with physically related inputs instead of speed and torque utilized in conventional control schemes. A physical model-free and calibratable controller structure is proposed for hardware flexibility. Furthermore, a discrete time sliding mode controller (SMC) is utilized as a feedback controller. Feedforward modeling and the subsequent airpath controller (SMC+GPR) are implemented on the physical diesel engine model and the performance of the proposed controller is compared with a conventional PID controller with table based feedforward.     

Hierarchical Direct Yaw-Moment Control System Design for In-Wheel Motor Driven Electric Vehicle

In this study, a hierarchical structured direct yaw-moment control (DYC) system, which consists of a main-loop controller and a servo-loop controller, is designed to enhance the handling and stability of an in-wheel motor driven driven electric vehicle (IEV). In the main loop, a Fractional Order PID (FO-PID) controller is proposed to generate desired external yaw moment. A modified Differential Evolution (M-DE) algorithm is adopted to optimize the controller parameters. In the servo-loop controller, the desired external yaw moment is optimally distributed to individual wheel torques by using sequential quadratic programming (SQP) approach, with the tire force boundaries estimated by Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) based on a fitted empirical tire model. The IEV prototype is virtually modelled by using Adams/Car collaborating with SolidWorks, validated by track tests, and serves as the control plant for simulation. The feasibility and effectiveness of the designed control system are examined by simulations in typical handling maneuver scenarios.     

Design of Regenerative Anti-Lock Braking System Controller for 4 In-Wheel-Motor Drive Electric Vehicle with Road Surface Estimation

This paper presents a regenerative anti-lock braking system control method with road detection capability. The aim of the proposed methodology is to improve electric vehicle safety and energy economy during braking maneuvers. Vehicle body longitudinal deceleration is used to estimate a road surface. Based on the estimation results, the controller generates an appropriate braking torque to keep an optimal for various road surfaces wheel slip and to regenerate for a given motor the maximum possible amount of energy during vehicle deceleration. A fuzzy logic controller is applied to fulfill the task. The control method is tested on a four in-wheel-motor drive sport utility electric vehicle model. The model is constructed and parametrized according to the specifications provided by the vehicle manufacturer. The simulation results conducted on different road surfaces, including dry, wet and icy, are introduced.     

Acoustical Characteristics of the Air Filter in the Engine Intake Air Cleaner

Linear acoustic theory is used for estimating the acoustical performance of the air cleaner box composed of the porous filter and encasing box in the engine intake system. The pleated filter structure is modeled as coupled multiple ducts having permeable micro-perforated walls and rectangular section, in which each duct area is assumed being homogeneous or inhomogeneous. Mathematical models describe the sound propagation within the narrow duct considering the visco-thermal effect at the filter pleats. For the validation, transmission loss (TL) is measured, and a change in TL spectrum is clearly observed by including the filter into the box. It is shown that the predicted TL counting the effect of visco-thermal loss agrees reasonably well with the experimental results. Noticeable effects of the filter on the TL are observed as highly smoothing effect at high frequencies and enhancing the TL magnitudes at troughs and lobes at low frequencies. Comparing homogeneous and inhomogeneous channel modelings, the latter is superior in precisely predicting the trough frequencies of TL curve, but the former is a bit better in predicting its magnitude. Parametric study on material and shape factors reveals that the number of pleats, length of the pleated filter, and distance between neighboring pleats are the key factors in determining the TL. It is concluded that an air filter element that has small number of long pleats with high flow resistance would bear the best acoustical performance among all designs.     

Evaluation and Measurement the Recovered Energy from Automobile Suspension in the Operation Conditions

The purpose of this paper is to verify if it is possible to recover the energy from automobile suspensions, using a system who replace the shock absorber. The system consists of an electric generator, a mechanical system for transforming the translation of body car in rotational movement and an electronic control system. The tests were made on three road types, according to ISO 8608/1995 with four different driving speeds. The results showed that a significant quantity of energy was recovered during the test on inferior type of road, even at reduced speed. For the superior type of the road, the energy can be recovered only at high speed. The parameters that influences the system capacity of recovering energy are gross weight of the vehicle, road type and the vehicle speed.     

Energy management and design optimization for a series-parallel PHEV city bus

Series-parallel PHEV city buses combine the advantages of series and parallel configurations and have been used in China. However, the design and energy management of series-parallel PHEV city buses based on Chinese driving conditions still need to be investigated. In this paper, an equivalent consumption minimization strategy is provided to optimize energy management for series-parallel PHEV city buses, and the process of the equivalent consumption minimization strategy for series-parallel is presented in this paper. Compared with the validated rule-based energy control strategy, ECMS shows a fuel economy improvement of 8.2 % in the CBCD (Chinese Bus Driving Cycle). Based on the optimal energy management, a design for a generator motor in the series-parallel configuration has been processed. The fuel consumption has been shown to decrease, with an increase in generator power, because the system with the higher generator power can work at a higher efficiency in the series mode and operate the engine in the high efficiency area in the parallel mode. Besides, in terms of costof- ownership for a PHEV bus for lifetime of 8 years, although the high generator power will lead to high purchase cost for series-parallel PHEV bus, a series-parallel PHEV city bus with a generator of 100 kW maximum power will still show small advantage in cost-of-ownership, based on current motor price and natural gas price.     

Design and validation of an electro-hydraulic brake system using hardware-in-the-loop real-time simulation

This paper presents a novel electric booster (E-booster) that exibits superior performance advantages over traditional vacuum boosters. The proposed E-booster, consisting of an electric motor and a ball screw assembly, is designed for electro-hydraulic brake (EHB) systems to meet relevant requirements for electric vehicles and active safety technologies. A mathematical model for an EHB system is generated to determine the desired values of the parameters for the E-booster prototype using numerical simulation in MATLAB. Simulation results of the EHB system with the virtual E-booster demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the innovative technique. Built upon the results derived from the numerical simualtions, an integrated algorithm based on the Kalman filter and a sliding mode control technique is designed to control the E-booster motor and to implement the brake booster function. A hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) real-time simulation system equipped with the E-booster prototype is developed. HIL real-time simulations are conducted to evaluate the proposed algorithm. The HIL real-time simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm generates booster brake forces fast, and forces the ball nut to track the push rod well to ensure comfortable brake pedal feel.