Dynamic Parameter Estimation of a MacPherson Strut Suspension

The dynamic parameters of a MacPherson strut suspension were estimated from the kinematic responses and measured external forces on the system. First, Lagrange equation was used to develop the equations of motion of the system, and then equations of motion were written as linear with respect to the dynamic parameters being estimated. The generalized coordinate partitioning technique was applied to create a reduced set of equations of motion of the constrained dynamic system. In this method only the measurements of positions and kinematic responses of the independent coordinates, and the external forces applied on the system are required as inputs. The rank deficient linear system was solved by QR decomposition. Good correlation was obtained between the actual parameters and the estimated parameters, by comparison between the simulated system response from the actual parameters and from the estimated parameters.     

Development of knowledge based body structure concept design model

The purpose of this study is to propose a concept design process for an automotive body structure using technical information on the major joints and members of vehicles. First, in order to collect the technical information on major joints and members, 17 vehicles were selected using benchmark data. The collected technical information for the selected vehicles was the cross sectional shapes of each joint and member which were used for the analysis of joint stiffness, crashworthiness and static stiffness of the member to make a database along with cross section properties. This study applied a ‘What If Study’ technique to perform a concept design of an automotive body using the analyzed information and selected cross section meeting the design objectives. The criteria for the selection of the cross section were defined by subdividing the defined design objectives of an automotive body structure and constraints into members and joints. In order to configure an analysis model of an automotive body structure using the selected cross section, a shape parametric model was used and static stiffness, dynamic stiffness and crashworthiness were assessed to evaluate the configured automotive body structure. The evaluation result showed that the crashworthiness and static/dynamic stiffness were improved compared to an existing body structure. In addition, the weight of the body structure was reduced. Through this study, the process that can rapidly and effectively derive and evaluate the concept design of an automotive body structure was defined. It is expected that, henceforth, this process will be helpful for the study of automotive body structures.     

Integrated approach to an optimal automotive timing chain system design

Ensuring engine efficiency is a crucial issue for automotive manufacturers. Several manufacturers focus on reducing the time taken to develop and introduce brand new vehicles to the market. Thus, a synergic approach including various simulations is generally adopted to achieve a development schedule and to reduce the cost of physical tests. This study involved proposing a design process that is very useful in the preliminary development stage through effective support from simulations. This type of simulation-based design process is effective in developing timing chain drives; the use of this process, based on results from multiple trials, showed improvements in performance including low friction and vibration, improved durability, and cost-effective part design when compared to conventional processes. This study proposes an integrated approach to the preliminary design of an automotive timing chain system. The approach involves structural and dynamic analyses. The details of the design process are described by using the case of a virtual engine. This study conducted and summarized a dynamic and structural analysis as well as topological optimization to describe a process to obtain optimal results. The results of this study indicated the following improvements in overall performance factors: 12.1 % improvement in transmission error, 10.1 % reduction in chain tension, 46 % reduction in tensioner arm weight, and 11 % reduction in transversal displacement.     

Workspace analysis to generate a collision-free torch path for a ship welding robot

We propose a method to determine the optimal initial location and to generate torch paths for a ship welding robot with 6 degrees of freedom (DOF). The optimal initial location is determined using an objective function, which is set up by combining constraints on the torch posture, manipulability, and the range of each joint angle to avoid collisions. A genetic algorithm (GA) is used to optimize the objective function because it does not require additional derivatives. After the initial location is determined, torch paths are generated by interpolating the starting point, endpoints and torch postures using inverse kinematics. Our method can be applied to automate the welding job for each block during ship building, irrespective of the shape of the robots, by changing the objective function.     

Optimum design of tilting bogie frame in consideration of fatigue strength and weight

This paper addresses the use of finite-element (FE) analysis to calculate the fatigue strength of a bogie frame, for the development of tilting trains in Korea. A multi-body dynamic analysis was performed to extract the load condition by tilting on curves. Using the results of the multi-body dynamic analysis and the load scenario setout in the UIC standard, FE analysis was performed to obtain the stress distribution and to calculate the fatigue strength. An attempt was made to minimize the weight of the bogie frame using a back-propagation artificial neural network (ANN). The results of this study reveal that the stresses at some nodes are near the fatigue limit in the Goodman diagram and by using back-propagation ANN, the weight of the bogie frame could be reduced by 4.7%.     

License plate extraction method for identification of vehicle violations at a railway level crossing

The primary cause of most railroad accidents is vehicle entry into railway level crossings despite warning messages. To identify drivers who violate railway level crossing regulations, vehicle license plate recognition can be applied at railway level crossings. The purpose of this paper is to present an effective method for extracting the license plate region from vehicle images taken at railway level crossings. The method proposed in this paper uses the variation in the gray-level values across the image of a license plate. For license plate region extraction, the character region is first recognized by identifying the character width and the difference between the background region and the character region. The license plate region is then extracted by finding the inter-character distance in the plate region. In addition, the license plate type is identified by the difference in the gray-level value between the background region and the character region. The proposed method is effective in solving the current challenges in extracting the license plate region from the damaged frames of license plates issued for domestic use, including new types of license plates. According to the experimental results, the proposed method yields a high extraction rate of 99.5% for vehicle license plates.     

Prediction of fatigue life and estimation of its reliability on the parts of an air suspension system

Air suspension systems have been implemented in various commercial vehicles, such as buses and special purpose trucks, because of the comfortable ride and easy height control. An evaluation of the durability of vehicle parts has been required for service life and safety starting in the early stages of design. The cyclic load applied to the vehicle can cause fatigue failure of parts, such as the suspension frame. This paper presents a method to predict the fatigue life of the suspension frame at the design stage of the air suspension system used in a heavy-duty vehicle. To estimate the fatigue life using the SN method, the Dynamic Stress Time History (DSTH) is necessary for the part of interest. DSTH can be obtained from the results of the flexible body dynamic analysis using the Belgian road simulation and the Modal Stress Recovery (MSR) method. Furthermore, the reliability of the predicted fatigue life can be evaluated by considering the variations in material properties. The probability and distribution of the expected life cycle can be obtained using experimental design with a minimum number of simulations. The advantage of using statistical methods to evaluate the life cycle is the ability to predict replacement time and the probability of failure of mass-produced parts. This paper proposes a rapid and simple method that can be effectively applied to the design of vehicle parts.     

Desired yaw rate and steering control method during cornering for a six-wheeled vehicle

This paper proposes a steering control method based on optimal control theory to improve the maneuverability of a six-wheeled vehicle during cornering. The six-wheeled vehicle is believed to have better performance than a four-wheeled vehicle in terms of its capability for crossing obstacles, off-road maneuvering and fail-safe handling when one or two of the tires are punctured. Although many methods to improve the four-wheeled vehicle’s lateral stability have been studied and developed, there have only been a few studies on the six-wheeled vehicle’s lateral stability. Some studies of the six-wheeled vehicle have been reported recently, but they are related to the desired yaw rate of a four-wheeled vehicle to control the six-wheeled vehicle’s maneuvering during corning. In this paper, the sideslip angle and yaw rate are controlled to improve the maneuverability during cornering by independent control of the steering angles of the six wheels. The desired yaw rate that is suitable for a six-wheeled vehicle is proposed as a control target. In addition, a scaled-down vehicle with six drive motors and six steering motors that can be controlled independently is designed. The performance of the proposed control methods is verified using a full model vehicle simulation and scaled-down vehicle experiment.     

Automotive structure vibration with component mode synthesis on a multi-level

The recursive component mode synthesis method (RCMS) has been implemented for the finite element analysis model of an automobile structure as an efficient free vibration analysis tool. The RCMS method is intended to obtain a better performance relative to the block Lanczos method, which is a traditional method in the industry of obtaining eigenvalues, while obtaining the acceptable accuracy. A numerical example of the automobile finite element model demonstrates the outstanding performance of RCMS compared to the block Lanczos method.     

Disturbance Observer-Based Sideslip Angle Control for Improving Cornering Characteristics of In-Wheel Motor Electric Vehicles

In this paper, a robust sideslip angle controller based on the direct yaw moment control (DYC) is proposed for in-wheel motor electric vehicles. Many studies have demonstrated that the DYC is one of the effective methods to improve vehicle maneuverability and stability. Previous approaches to achieve the DYC used differential braking and active steering system. Not only that, the conventional control systems were commonly dependent on the feedback of the yaw rate. In contrast to the traditional control schemes, however, this paper proposes a novel approach based on sideslip angle feedback without controlling the yaw rate. This is mainly because if the vehicle sideslip angle is controlled properly, the intended sideslip angle helps the vehicle to pass through the corner even at high speed. On the other hand, the vehicle may become unstable because of the too large sideslip caused by unexpected yaw disturbances and model uncertainties of time-varying parameters. From this aspect, disturbance observer (DOB) is employed to assure robust performance of the controller. The proposed controller was realized in CarSim model described actual electric vehicle and verified through computer simulations.