RMS Values of Force, Stroke and Tyre Deflection in a Half-Car Model with Preview Controlled Active Suspension

Summary Matrix expressions are developed for the direct computation of rms values for the optimal control forces, front and rear suspension strokes and dynamic tyre deflections in a half-car model on a random road of given roughness. A quadratic performance index is employed with assumed weighting factors and evaluated in the same computation.     

Devising business strategy for railways

This paper presents a case study which tackles a general problem for railway management, namely the formulation of a strategy to improve business financial performance. This is prefaced, in Section 2, by discussion of general principles - concerning the type of information system required, investigations to be conducted and associated measurement needs. The case study, of Section 3, concerns our investigations of VicRail's total business and its constituents. The task of financial improvement is revealed from an assessment of sectors' current cost-recovery positions and the identification of system joint costs. For freight sectors, future traffic prospects, pricing possibilities and the scope for more efficient operations are then considered, and the implications traced for overall deficit reduction and the development of business strategy. The concluding section draws some general lessons for railway managements.A fuller discussion by the authors of the theoretical framework employed, and particularly of the case study application, is contained in a complimentary publication: Improving Railway Financial Performance, published by Gower in January 1985.Transmark is a subsidiary of the British Railways Board, acting as its international consultancy. The authors, who were respectively study director and manager, wish to thank Bernard Warner (an independent consultant), Richard Eccles (of Transmark) and Adrian Balkyn-Rackowe (of British Rail) for their valuable contributions. The study report, titled Rail Cost — Pricing Options, was released by the Minister in April 1981.     

处于十字路口的尼日利亚航运和造船修理业

从上世纪90年代早期到目前为止,尼日利亚联邦政府并没对航运业和造船修理业投入太多精力。一个典型例子就是,由于对这些行业不够重视导致了前尼日利亚国家货运公司（NNSL）的衰败及倒闭。1996年,尼日利亚联合货运公司（NUL）成立。但新公司的成立并     

ICE(R)系列新动车用 COBRA诊断系统--对车务人员和维修的创新支持

ICE 系列新动车ICE3、ICET、ICE TD采用了层级结构的诊断系统COBRA(Central On Board RailwayAssistant车载辅助中心),有各装置的自诊断和动车有关的上一级诊断.COBRA诊断系统有清晰的目标群取向,总是只向车务人员和维修人员提供重要的信息和可能的补救措施.在列车进段之前就对自动释放和经无线传输的诊断数据做了计算.列车一进段就准备好了维修人员和维修材料,例如更换损坏件和磨耗件,在进行清洁作业的同时为列车下一次运行准备好了良好的状态.     

Simulation of city bus performance based on actual urban driving cycle in China

This paper establishes the simulation model of a city bus on the basis of the EQ6110 bus prototype and its experimental data. According to the actual urban driving cycle, the fuel economy and the traction performance of the EQ6110 city bus have been simulated, and factors such as the driving cycle, the loss of power to engine accessories, the gear-shifting strategy, the fuel shut-off strategy of the engine, etc., which influence on the bus’s fuel economy, are also quantitatively analyzed. Some conclusions are drawn as follows: (1) driving cycles have a great influence on the fuel economy of a city bus; (2) under the typical urban driving cycle of the public bus in China, the engine fuel shut-off strategy can save about 1 to 1.5 percent of the fuel consumption; and (3) the optimized gear-shifting rules can save 6.7 percent of the fuel consumption. Experimental results verify that the fuel economy for the EQ6110 public bus is improved by 7.2 pecent over the actual Wuhan urban driving cycle of the current public bus in China.     

Lane-following method for high speed autonomous vehicles

This paper presents a steering control method for lane-following in a vehicle using an image sensor. With each image frame acquired from the sensor, the steering control method determines target position and direction, and constructs a travel path from the current position to the target position either as an Arc-path or S-path. The steering angle is calculated from the travel path thus generated, and the vehicle follows the travel path via motor-control. The method was tested using a vehicle dubbed as KAV (Korea Autonomous Vehicle) along an expressway (Seoul Inner Beltway) trajectory with a variety of radii (50 m ∼ 300 m) while traveling at a speed of 60 km/h to 80 km/h. Compared with an experienced human driver, the method showed little much difference in performance in terms of lane-center deviation. The proposed method is currently employed for high speed autonomous driving as well as for stop and go traffic.     

Fault detection method for electric parking brake (EPB) systems with sensorless estimation using current ripples

A fault detection method with parity equations is proposed in this paper. Due to its low cost implementation, the velocity of the motor is not measurable in electric parking brake (EPB) systems. Therefore, residuals are not reliable when estimating the motor velocity with a low-resolution encoder. In this paper, we propose a fault detection method with sensorless estimation using current ripples that estimates the position and velocity of the motor by detecting periodical oscillations of the armature current caused by rotor slots. In addition, this method can estimate the position and velocity of the motor with less computational effort than a state observer. Moreover, the method is less sensitive to motor parameters than model-based estimation methods. The effectiveness of this method is validated with experimental data, and the simulation results show that various faults have their own residual patterns. Therefore, we can detect the presence of faults by monitoring the residual signals.     

Development of electrostatic diesel particulate matter filtration systems combined with a metallic Flow-Through Filter and electrostatic methods

A 3000 cc diesel engine attached to an engine dynamo was used to test three newly developed electrostatic Diesel Particulate matter filtration Systems (DPS 1, 2, and 3) under four steady-state engine operating conditions: idle, 2000 rpm with no load, and 2000 rpm under 25% and 50% loads. Of the two developed alternatives, DPS 1 and DPS 2, DPS 2 comprises an ionization section, electrostatic field additional section and Flow-Through Filter (FTF), which achieved almost 90% removal of particulate matter (PM) under the engine’s operating conditions, and the efficiency of the FTF was maintained between 20% and 50%. Comparing the long-term performance of DPS 2 and DPS 3 (effectively a serial combination of two DPS 2s) with a commercially-available Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF), the DPS 2 and DPS 3 achieved almost the same efficiency for removing PM as the DPF but had significantly improved (75%∼90% lower) differential pressure drops.     

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