Handling Characteristics of Car-Trailer Systems; A State-of-the-Art Survey

Work relevant to the state of the art as regards passenger cars towing trailers is referenced and reviewed. Not only included is the very limited amount of work specifically dealing with passenger cars towing trailers, but also reviewed is the much larger body of work having a bearing on car-trailer systems. Topics included are aerodynamic forces, tire forces, the compliance concept, relevant work on vehicles without trailers, vehicles with trailers, and the role of the driver. The types of stability problems exhibited by car-trailer systems are discussed.

The state of the art as regards ability to predict vehicle response to specific steering inputs is shown to be fairly advanced. Recent significant advances include the appearance of experimental data useful for validating theoretical models. However, the state of the art as regards definition of what constitute desirable handling characteristics is still at a primitive stage, largely because of a lack of understanding of the roles played by drivers as part of the vehicle -driver - environment systems.

Throughout the review an effort was made to point out topic areas where it is likely that significant future contributions to the state of the art can be made. These areas are reviewed in the conclusions.     

The development of the Suez Canal

This paper provides general background information relating to the physical characteristics and operations of the Suez Canal. In connection with the future development of the Canal, the research programme currently being undertaken by a British consortium is outlined, with particular reference to the traffic system presently operating.     

Design of a forced control system for a dynamic road simulator using QFT

This paper presents the road simulator control technology for reproducing a road input signal to implement real road data. The simulator consists of a hydraulic pump, a servo valve, a hydraulic actuator and its control equipment. QFT (Quantitative Control Theory) is utilized to control the simulator effectively. The control system illustrates a tracking performance of the closed-loop controller with a low order transfer function G(s) and a pre-filter F(s) for a parametric uncertainty model. A force controller is designed to communicate the control signal between the simulator and digital controller. Tracking specification is satisfied with upper and lower bound tolerances on the steep response of the system to the reference signal. The efficacy of the QFT force controller is verified through the numerical simulation in which combined dynamics and actuation of the hydraulic servo system are tested. The simulation results show that the proposed control technique works well under an uncertain hydraulic plant system. The conventional software (Labview) is used to make up for the real controller on a real-time basis, and the experimental works show that the proposed algorithm works well for a single road simulator.     

Experimental investigation of abrasive flow machining effects on injector nozzle geometries,engine performance,and emissions in a di diesel engine

The effects of the Abrasive Flow Machining (AFM) process on a direct injection (DI) Diesel engine fuel injector nozzle are studied. Geometry characterization techniques were developed to measure the microscopic variations inside the nozzle before and after the process. This paper also provides empirically-based correlations of the nozzle geometry changes due to the AFM process. The resulting impact of the process on the engine performance and emissions are also assessed with a DI Diesel engine test setup. This study shows that properly AFM-processed injectors can enhance engine performance and improve emissions due to the improved quality of the nozzle characteristics. However, an extended process can also cause enlargement of the nozzle hole as a side effect, which can adversely affect emissions. Emission measurements show the trade-off for the minimum levels as the process proceeds. Since the enlargement of the hole during the AFM process is not avoidable and must be minimized, strict control over the process is required. This control can be enforced by either limiting the AFM processing period, or by properly preparing the initial hole diameter so as to accommodate the inevitable changes in the nozzle geometry.     

Analysis of the transient atomization characteristics of diesel spray using time-resolved PDPA data

The transient atomization characteristics of a single-hole diesel spray were investigated to clarify the time-dependent droplet formation process of the spray through time-resolved analysis of the droplet size data acquired by using a 2-D PDPA (phase Doppler particle analyzer). Comparisons among the three single-hole diesel nozzles on the atomization characteristics were made to confirm the effects of the hole-diameter. The hole diameter of the single-hole diesel nozzles varied with d_n=0.22, 0.32 and 0.42 mm. The time-resolved diameter, SMD (Sauter mean diameter) and AMD (arithmetic mean diameter) of droplets in diesel spray injected into still ambient air were measured. The SMD and AMD decreased with decreasing nozzle hole diameter. The SMD distribution along the spray centerline steeply decreased with increasing axial distance before reaching a constant value. In the time-dependent analysis of the SMD of the whole flow field, the SMD gradually increased with time after the initiation of injection, reached a maximum value, and then decreased.     

Investigation on the flow and heat transfer characteristics of diesel engine EGR coolers

An important goal in diesel engine research is the development of a means to reduce the emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx). The use of a cooled exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) system is one of the most effective techniques currently available for reducing nitrogen oxides. Since PM (Particulate Matter) fouling reduces the efficiency of an EGR cooler, a tradeoff exists between the amount of NOx and PM emissions, especially at high engine loads. In the present study, we performed engine dynamometer experiments and numerical analyses to investigate how the internal shape of an EGR cooler affects the heat exchanger efficiency. Heat exchanger efficiencies were examined for plain and spiral EGR coolers. The temperature and pressure distributions inside these EGR coolers were obtained in three dimensions using the numerical package program FLUENT.     

Comments on ‘the Kalker book of tables for non-Hertzian contact of wheel and rail’

The ‘simple double-elliptical contact’ (SDEC) approach by Piotrowski et al. [The Kalker book of tables for non-Hertzian contact of wheel and rail. Vehicle Syst Dyn. 2017;55:875–901] generates a-symmetrical contact patches in an elegant way. This allows to extend the table-based approach for the wheel–rail creep force calculation towards non-Hertzian contact geometry. This is an important line of research, because FASTSIM is intricate for non-Hertzian contacts, whereas CONTACT requires long calculation times.

Here, we comment on the further motivation that's provided for the approach. According to the authors, ‘the spin creepage generates longitudinal creep force in non-symmetric, non-elliptical contacts’, which is ‘completely lost’ when using elliptical regularisation. We demonstrate that this mainly depends on the choice of contact origin, and that the interaction is much reduced if different choices are made. This suggests that elliptical regularisation may be viable still, if the details are properly worked out. Furthermore, we introduce the spin center and the free-rolling position as means to extend the table-based approach towards more general non-Hertzian circumstances.     

The numerical friction line

This paper presents a study on the numerical calculation of the friction resistance coefficient of an infinitely thin plate as a function of the Reynolds number. Seven eddy-viscosity models have been selected: the one-equation turbulence models of Menter and Spalart–Allmaras; the k-ω two-equation model proposed by Wilcox and its TNT, BSL and SST variants and the two-equation model. The flow has been computed at 14 Reynolds numbers in sets of seven geometrically similar Cartesian grids to allow a reliable estimation of the numerical uncertainty. The effect of the computational domain size has been reduced to negligible levels (below the numerical uncertainty). And the same holds for the iterative and round-off errors. In the finest grids of each set, the numerical uncertainty of the friction resistance coefficient is always below 1%. Special attention has further been given to the solution behaviour in the laminar-to-turbulent transition region. Curve fits have been applied to the data obtained at the 14 Reynolds numbers and the numerical friction lines are compared with four proposals from the open literature: the 1957 ITTC line, the Schoenherr line and the lines suggested by Grigson and Katsui et al. The differences between the numerical friction lines obtained with the seven turbulence models are smaller than the differences between the four lines proposed in the open literature.     

基于关键块体理论的公路边坡防护及工程应用

文章以安徽省S209 k95 000～k95 080段灾害整治工程为例,根据关键块体的基本原理,对其边坡关键块体,即两块巨石的稳定性进行了分析,介绍采用支撑梁 支撑销子 挡土墙的组合支挡防护方案,提出了基于生态恢复的边坡处治措施.