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A five-year development program by the American Metal Products Co. to process stamped axle housings has culminated in the application of cold extrusion to spindles. The new process involved the installation of a 5500 ton press capable of driving a punch through a 20 lb billet, as well as modification and rearrangement of existing equipment. The system has not only resulted in considerable production savings but has also contributed to an overall expansion program. The company, although fully preoccupied with the basic spindle for production of axle housings, has already investigated other applications of the new equipment toward product diversification.

The new small and lightweight 2-cylinder liquid-cooled OHC gasoline engines were developed. These new engines are featuring high output, low vibration and noise radiation and so able to improve the comfortableness and amenity of applied utility machines. In this paper, the features of the new engines and the process to realize development targets are introduced. The basic structure adopted on the new engines is a liquid-cooled, inline 2-cyilinder layout with 360-degree firing intervals, twin balancer shafts, and an overhead camshaft that is driven by a cogged belt. Also various parts made of aluminum alloy and plastics could make the engine lighter. By these measures, the new engines could satisfy their hardest development targets, and realize their easy installation, higher versatility, and have the excellent features such as compact size, lightweight, high output, low exhaust gas emission and low vibration and noise radiation.

Four new 2-cylinder 4-stroke concepts are displayed as design and fitted in vehicles. These four different concepts comprise a Modular Concept V2- and W3-cylinder a MotoGP / Superbike concept with 2 and 3 cylinders, a narrow angle V-engine and a Building Block System Commuter CVT engine. Each engine concept is designed to meet the different requirements of the four segments. Specific analysis and simulation concerning 1D thermodynamics, vehicle simulation and delivered performance and tractive force was done for each concept. The concepts are compared in the aspects of uniform rotation, inertia forces and moments, and the effect on performance by the pulse effects of the manifolded intake and exhaust systems. The Modular Concept contains an OHC engine with a wide range of displacements and commonality of many parts. Good versatility is obtained as the concepts can be applied for sport- or custom bikes.

The Rotating Cylinder Valve (RCV) Engine is a novel 4 cycle engine that is a practical alternative to conventional 2 and 4 stroke designs, in particular for small capacity single cylinder applications. It is primarily intended to address applications where emissions legislation is forcing manufacturers to abandon the traditional carburetted 2 stroke. It has particular benefits for the moped/light motorcycle market. The engine operates on a simple principle. The cylinder liner is rotated around the piston at half engine speed via a pair of bevel gears. A port in the side of this cylinder indexes with inlet and exhaust ports in the surrounding casing. This rotary valve serves the cylinder as the engine cycles through the conventional 4 stroke cycle. The main technical issue that has been addressed is the design of a practical rotary valve seal.

The significance and the number of vehicle safety features enabled via connectivity continue to increase. OnStar, with its automatic airbag notification, was one of the first vehicle safety features that demonstrate the enhanced safety benefits of connectivity. Vehicle connectivity benefits have grown to include remote software updates, data analytics to aid with preventative maintenance and even to theft prevention and recovery. All of these services require available and reliable connectivity. However, except for the airbag notification, none have strict latency requirements. For example, software updates can generally be postponed till reliable connectivity is available. Data required for prognostic use cases can be stored and transmitted at a later time. A new set of use cases are emerging that do demand continuous, reliable and low latency connectivity. For example, remote control of autonomous vehicles may be required in unique situations.

The long time needed for the application and the money involved are some of the main obstacles preventing the CNG vehicles market penetration, costs are always too high and application time always too long compared with the relatively small volumes. Besides the activities to be carried out on the original engine control system to integrate the gas system are unwelcome by the OEM as they require a re-validation of already validated components/systems. This issue became more critical since the EOBD system has been installed into the vehicles as the extremely heavy validation activity are jeopardized by the gas system and the major part of the calibration/validation work shall be repeated. A new gas control system has been developed with the aims to achieve the best performances in terms of power, driveability, emissions, without any modifications on the OEM system, very short application time and costs.

A finite element model of a folded airbag with the module cover and steering wheel system was developed to estimate the injury numbers of a 5th percentile female dummy in an out-of-position (OOP) situation. The airbag model was correlated with static airbag deployments and standard force plate tests. The 5th percentile finite element dummy model developed by First Technology Safety Systems (FTSS) was used in the simulation. The following two OOP tests were simulated with the airbag model including a validated steering wheel finite element model: 1. Chest on air bag module for maximum chest interaction from pressure loading (MS6-D) and 2. Neck on air bag module for maximum neck interaction from membrane loading (MS8-D). These two simulations were then compared to the test results. Satisfactory correlation was found in both the cases.

To optimize the tyre contact patch in a sports car, Ferrari has developed an active camber and toe (ACT) system comprising of 4 actuators for the rear axle. This complex and completely new system is difficult to model accurately and for this reason, it was decided to combine a physical prototype with a full vehicle model to carry out the functional tests. The method of combining a virtual model with a physical test is known as hybrid simulation. This functional testing of both the actuators and the vehicle dynamics logic will be performed on an MTS 6DOF bench test prior to physical track testing on a prototype vehicle using Ferrari facility in Maranello, Italy. In support of this functional testing, we will use hybrid simulation techniques with software and methods specifically developed. The planned hybrid test system described in the paper will allow dynamic coupling between the physical bench test and a modified full vehicle simulation model.

As automotive technology has been developed, gear whine has become a prominent contributor for cabin noise as the masking has been decreased. Whine is not the loudest source, but it is of high tonal noise which is often highly unpleasant. The gear noise originates at gear mesh. Transmission Error acts as an excitation source and these vibrations pass through gears, shafts and bearings to the housing which vibrates to produce noise on surrounding air. As microgeometry optimization target to reduce the fundamental excitation source of the noise, it has been favored method to tackle gear whine noise, especially for manual transmission. However, practicality of microgeometry optimization for the planetary gear system has been still in question, because of complex system structure and interaction among multi mesh gear sets make it hard to predict and even harder to improve. In this paper, successful case of whine noise improvement by microgeometry is presented.

Weight reduction and high transmission efficiency demands are getting heavier to manual transmission (MT) for vehicle driving and fuel economy performance. Also comfortable shift feeling and low gear noise level are continuously required by customer because those sensitivity performances are directly recognized by driver which can determine the transmission's merchantability. Newly developed high torque capacity MT is based on serial transmission BG6 which is adopted into a lot of customer' vehicle. This new MT is weight reduced, shift feeling and gear noise performance are highly improved that keeps strong competitiveness in the future. Concerning shift feeling, its smoothness, force balance and cross shift performance are improved and optimized. Also for low gear noise performance, it was reduced to the level which can have advantage to competitor and highly comfortable for passenger vehicle. Those improvement technologies are reported as follows.

The measurement of the contact forces between road and tires is of fundamental importance while designing road vehicles. In this paper, the design and the employment of measuring wheels for trucks and heavy vehicles is presented. The measuring wheels have been optimized in order to obtain high stiffness and the approximately the same mass of the wheels normally employed. The proposed multicomponent measuring wheels are high- accuracy instruments for measuring the dynamic loads during handling and durability testing. The measuring wheels can replace the wheels of the truck under normal operation. Such family of wheels plays a major role in modern road vehicles development. The measuring wheel concept design is based on a patented three-spoke structure connected to the wheel rim. The spokes are instrumented by means of strain gauges and the measuring wheel is able to measure the three forces and the three moments acting at the interface between the tire and the road.

This paper describes an advanced vehicle radar system operating at a frequency of 60.5 GHz that has been jointly developed for the Japanese automobile and truck market by Eaton VORAD Technologies of San Diego, California, and Hitachi, Ltd. of Japan. The radar system is used for both collision warning system (CWS) applications and for adaptive cruise control (ACC) applications. The radar system employs monopulse radar technology to measure azimuth angle to each vehicle in the forward direction. The techniques used to reduce cost and complexity of monopulse radar for low cost use on commercial vehicles are described. These techniques combine Doppler radar technology with digitally derived monopulse processing. Japan is the only country that has selected the frequency band of 60 GHz for vehicle radar systems. The reasons for this selection are discussed and the advantages and disadvantages of this frequency band are presented.

TCT - Total Combustion Technology is technology designed to enable small SI four-stroke and two-stroke engines to meet current and proposed emission standards that pertain to small engines. This paper outlines the technology, the testing equipment, and the results from tests comparing TCT to original carburetors on two different engines. The comparison shows clearly that emissions can be reduced substantially by TCT. The MLC (Mechanical Lambda Control) feature of TCT allows the emission profile of the engine to be matched to the application in each case.

The University of Liege and Breuer Technical Development, Belgium, have designed a parallel hybrid drive train, now implemented in a VW Lupo. The original objectives of the concept were the reduction of total CO2 emissions without performance loss and an acceptable zero-emission range for inner cities. This paper presents: Metropol, a homemade hybrid simulation software, including engine cold start and dynamic battery models, hybrid management strategy for the lowest CO2 emissions, final performance, consumption and emissions of the vehicle.

This paper describes the risk of injury to the rider in a crash using a statistical model based on real-world accident data. We analyzed the road traffic accidents data in Los Angeles and Hanover. Logistic regression modeling technique was used to clarify the relationship among probabilities of minor, serious, fatal injury risk to the rider, and the influence of risk factors in accidents involving opposing vehicle contact point, motorcycle contact point, opposing vehicle speed, motorcycle speed, relative heading angle of impact, and helmet use. The odds ratio, which was adjusted for risk factors simultaneously, was estimated by using the developed technique, and was compared with the effects of risk factors individually. The results showed that there was a statistically significant relationship between minor and serious injuries and opposing vehicle speed, motorcycle speed and opposing vehicle contact point.

In France, the current evolution in the number of road accident victims is less favourable for the moped rider category than for the majority of others. In addition, the proportion of scooters in the moped park is currently considerably increasing. The aim of the research work presented is to consider if an explanation for the bad results for this category of users, in terms of road safety, can be found through the study of the dynamic performances of this type of vehicle. We thus carried out an experiment aimed at comparing the dynamic capacities of a “Classic” moped with those of a “Scooter” model. Two mopeds, one of each type, were fitted with an embedded measurement system. They were driven for several tests on a track by a professional test pilot. The results of this study are more in favour of the “Scooter” moped, which seems to offer equivalent, or even better, dynamic capacities than the “Classic” one.

A new six-speed transaxle has been introduced by the Chrysler Group of DaimlerChrysler AG. Along with the six forward ratios in the normal upshift sequence, this transaxle features a seventh forward ratio used primarily in a specific downshift sequence. A significant technical challenge in this design was the control of so-called double-swap shifts, the exchange of two shift elements for two other shift elements. In the case at hand, one of the elements is a freewheel. A unique solution is discussed for successful control of double-swap shifts. The new design replaces a four-speed transaxle but makes use of a large percentage of parts and processes from the four-speed design. This approach enabled the new transaxle to reach production in three years from concept. The new transaxle, referred to as the 62TE, has substantially improved performance and passing maneuvers coupled with a new 4.0L high output engine for which the 62TE was developed.

This paper gives a report on ergonomic approaches we tried to scooters for improvements in their riding comfort. First we conducted investigations into riding postures that offer a comfortable scooter ride. That is, we picked out major items for the evaluation of scooter riding postures and investigated a correlation between those items and their physical quantities. Our investigation revealed that room for leg and arm movements played a major role in a scooter riding posture. We further found out a high correlation between the evaluation items for legroom and the knee angles and also high correlation between the evaluation items for legroom and the ankle angle. Next we report on the result of the attempt we made at improved riding comfort by equipping the scooter seat with a backrest. To check the effects of backrest, we measured the seating pressure distribution, myogenic potential, and cardiogenic potential.

IMEP can be generally calculated by numerical integration on the PV diagram. However, this method requires a great number of sampled data per cycle, in order to ensure high accuracy in calculation. The present method is a to use only the primary and secondary components of engine speed from the pressure diagram based on the Fourier series. Owing to this method, calculation errors have become smaller than conventional method even though the number of samples is reduced, and calculation time is also reduced by the conventional method. Using present method, a Fourier series type combustion analyzing system has been developed. Real-time IMEP measurement is allowed in this system owing to the characteristic features described above, and the validity of calculated results is confirmed by comparing the results with the IMEP values obtained by batch processing through the numerical integration.