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With the current state of automotive electrification, predicting which electrification pathway is likely to be the most economical over a 10- to 30-year outlook is wrought with uncertainty. The development of a range of technologies should continue, including statically charged battery electric vehicles (BEVs), fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), and EVs designed for a combination of plug-in and electric road system (ERS) supply. The most significant uncertainties are for the costs related to hydrogen supply, electrical supply, and battery life. This greatly is dependent on electrolyzers, fuel-cell costs, life spans and efficiencies, distribution and storage, and the price of renewable electricity. Green hydrogen will also be required as an industrial feedstock for difficult-to-decarbonize areas such as aviation and steel production, and for seasonal energy buffering in the grid.

An oft-cited benefit of additive manufacturing (AM), or “3D-printing,” technology is the ability to produce parts at the point of use by downloading a digital file and making the part at a local printer. This has the potential to greatly compress supply chains, lead times, inventories, and design iterations for custom parts. As a result of this, both manufacturing and logistics companies are investigating and investing in AM capacity for production at the point of use. However, it can be imagined that the feasibility and benefits are a function of size, materials, build time, manufacturing complexity, cost, and competing technologies. Because of this, there are instances where the viability of point-of-use manufacturing ranges from the perfect solution to the worst possible choice.

Laser and electron-beam powder bed fusion (PBF) additive manufacturing (AM) technology has transitioned from prototypes and tooling to production components in demanding fields such as medicine and aerospace. Some of these components have geometries that can only be made using AM. Initial applications either take advantage of the relatively high surface roughness of metal PBF parts, or they are in fatigue, corrosion, or flow environments where surface roughness does not impose performance penalties. To move to the next levels of performance, the surfaces of laser and electron-beam PBF components will need to be smoother than the current as-printed surfaces. This will also have to be achieve on increasingly more complex geometries without significantly increasing the cost of the final component.

A narrow focus on electrification and elimination of tailpipe emissions is unlikely to achieve decarbonization objectives. Renewable power generation is unlikely to keep up with increased demand for electricity. A focus on tailpipe emissions ignores the significant particulate pollution that “zero emission” vehicles still cause. It is therefore vital that energy efficiency is improved. Active travel is the key to green economic growth, clean cities, and unlocking the energy saving potential of public transport. The Challenges of Vehicle Decarbonization reviews the urgent need to prioritize active travel infrastructure, create compelling mass-market cycling options, and switch to hybrid powertrains and catenary electrification for long-haul heavy trucks. The report also warns of the potential increase in miles travelled with the advent of personal automated vehicles as well as the pitfalls of fossil-fuel derived hydrogen power.

The field of parallel kinematics was viewed as being potentially transformational in manufacturing, having multiple potential advantages over conventional serial machine tools and robots. However, the technology never quite achieved market penetration or broad success envisaged. Yet, many of the inherent advantages still exist in terms of stiffness, force capability, and flexibility when compared to more conventional machine structures. Deployment of Parallel Kinematic Machines in Manufacturing examines why parallel kinematic machines have not lived up to original excitement and market interest and what needs to be done to rekindle that interest. A number of key questions and issues need to be explored to advance the technology further. Click here to access the full SAE EDGETM Research Report portfolio.

In its entirety, automation is part of an integrated, multi-disciplinary product development process including the design, process, production, logistics, and systems approach—it depends on all these areas, but it also influences them as well. Automation in aerospace manufacturing is present throughout the entire supply chain, from elementary part manufacturing at suppliers up to final assembly, and a clear understanding of all the benefits (and drawbacks) of automation would help designers and engineers select the right designs for and levels of automation. The Right Level of Automation Within Industry 4.0 examines all impacts of automation that should be known by designers, manufacturers, and companies before investments in automation-related decisions are made—regardless of the which industry they work in. The process and the set of criteria discussed in this report will help decision makers select the right level of automation.

Variable renewable energy (VRE), such as photovoltaic solar and wind turbines, will require new approaches to buffering energy within the grid. This must include significant ancillary services and longer duration storage to buffer seasonal variations in supply and demand. Such services may be economically provided by leveraging the battery resources of electric vehicles (EVs) for frequency response and energy storage for durations of up to a few hours, together with baseload and dispatchable power for longer duration buffering. Impact of Electric Vehicle Charging on Grid Energy Buffering discusses the unsettled issues and requirements needed to realize the potential of EV batteries for demand response and grid services, such as improved battery management, control strategies, and enhanced cybersecurity.

Sustainable first/last/only-mile (FLO-mile) transport is the key to sustainable travel. It could directly replace private car use for short urban journeys, which account for 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions. More importantly, it could enable public transport to be used for longer journeys, which account for 6% of emissions. Active travel, such as walking and cycling, has the lowest emissions and provides huge economic benefits that pay for the required infrastructure many times over. Unsettled Issues Regarding First- and Last-Mile Transport discusses the mass switch to more sustainable modes of transport and how to increase their perceived value to users. It also covers the prioritization of publicly owned cycles over rideshare options due to the latter’s higher lifecycle emissions, including manufacture, redistribution, and service operations and station construction. Click here to access the full SAE EDGETM Research Report portfolio.

Additive manufacturing (AM), also known as “3D printing,” has transitioned from concepts and prototypes to part-for-part substitution—and now to the creation of part geometries that can only be made using AM. As a wide range of mobility OEMs begin to introduce AM parts into their products, the question between insourcing and outsourcing the manufacturing of AM parts has surfaced. Just like parts made using other technologies, AM parts can require significant post-processing operations. Therefore, as AM supply chains begin to develop, the sourcing of AM part building and their post-processing becomes an unsettled and important issue. Unsettled Aspects of Insourcing and Outsourcing Additive Manufacturing discusses the approaches and trade-offs of the different sourcing options for production hardware for multiple scenarios, including both metallic and polymer technologies and components. Click here to access the full SAE EDGETM Research Report portfolio.

Additive manufacturing (AM), also known as “3D printing,” now provides the ability to have an almost fully digital chain from part design through manufacture and service. This “digital thread” can bring great benefits in improving designs, processes, materials, operations, and the ability to predict failure in a way that maximizes safety and minimizes cost and downtime. Unsettled Aspects of the Digital Thread in Additive Manufacturing discusses what the interplay between AM and a digital thread in the mobility industry would look like, the potential benefits and costs, the hurdles that need to be overcome for the combination to be useful, and how an organization can answer these questions to scope and benefit from the combination. Click here to access the full SAE EDGETM Research Report portfolio.

While many observers think that autonomy is right around the corner, there many unsettled issues. One such issue is availability, or how the vehicle behaves in the event of a failure of one of its systems such as those with the latest “by-wire” technologies. Handling of failures at a technical actuation level could involve many aspects, including time of operation after first fault, function/performance after first fault, and exposure after first fault. All of these and other issues are affected by software and electronic and mechanical hardware. Drive-by-wire and Automated Driving System Availability discusses the necessary systems approach required to address these issues. Establishing an industry path forward for these topics will simplify system development and provide a framework for consistent regulation and liability, which is an enabler for the launch of autonomous vehicles. Click here to access the full SAE EDGETM Research Report portfolio.

The on-vehicle automation system is primarily designed to replace the human driver during driving to enhance the performance and avoid possible fatalities. However, current implementations in automated vehicles (AVs) generally neglect that human imperfection and preference do not always lead to negative consequences, which prevents achieving optimized vehicle performance and maximized road safety. Human-like Decision-making and Control for Automated Driving takes a step forward to address breaking through the limitation of future automation applications, investigating in depth: Human driving feature modeling and analysis Personalized motion control for AVs Human-like decision making for AVs Click here to access the full SAE EDGETM Research Report portfolio.

In the early days, there were significant limitations to the build size of laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) additive manufacturing (AM) machines. However, machine builders have addressed that drawback by introducing larger L-PBF machines with expansive build volumes. As these machines grow, their size capability approaches that of directed energy deposition (DED) machines. Concurrently, DED machines have gained additional axes of motion which enable increasingly complex part geometries—resulting in near-overlap in capabilities at the large end of the L-PBF build size. Additionally, competing technologies, such as binder jet AM and metal material extrusion, have also increased in capability, albeit with different starting points. As a result, the lines of demarcation between different processes are becoming blurred.

During the course of a fire and subsequent exposure to the environment, iron and low-carbon steels oxidize by two mechanisms: high temperature oxidation and atmospheric corrosion. Of particular interest to fire investigators are oxide properties and distribution that could be of use to better understand important characteristics of the fire such as the location the fire originated, the direction the fire traveled or even temperature versus time characteristics. This could be particularly valuable in cases where burn damage to combustible material, which is known to be an important indicator of fire origin, is so extensive that little if any material remains after the fire. However, there is little data in the literature that specifically addresses the utility of oxide properties in the context of fire investigations.

Temperature measurements during a full-scale burn test of a 2001 full-size pickup truck showed that the fire progressed in distinct stages in both the engine and passenger compartments. Although the fire started in the engine compartment and had a relatively long growth period, when a localized area reached about 700°C, a distinct transition occurred where the rate of fire spread increased, leading to full involvement of all engine compartment combustibles. As the engine compartment became fully involved, a hot gas layer then accumulated at the ceiling of the passenger compartment, producing a strong vertical temperature gradient. When the temperature at the ceiling reached about 600°C, another distinct transition occurred where the rate of fire spread increased, leading to full involvement of the passenger compartment. The highest temperature during the test occurred within the engine compartment in an area that had the greatest fuel load, and not the area of origin.

This paper reports a study undertaken by the Crash Safety Working Group (CSWG) of the United States Council for Automotive Research (USCAR) to determine generic acceleration pulses for testing and evaluating advanced batteries subjected to inertial loading for application in electric passenger vehicles. These pulses were based on characterizing vehicle acceleration time histories from standard laboratory vehicle crash tests. Crash tested passenger vehicles in the United States vehicle fleet of the model years 2005-2009 were used in this study. Crash test data, in terms of acceleration time histories, were collected from various crash modes conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) during their New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) and Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) evaluations, and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

When vehicle collisions are reconstructed using a discrete kinetic time forward simulation program, many trials have to be performed to reach a point where the simulation results are close to the actual ones. The pre-impact speeds and directions of travel of each vehicle are the main variables that affect the post-impact motion of the vehicles. However, other factors, such as the exact resultant position where the impact forces are exchanged, the vehicle positions with respect to each other at impact, and the coefficient of restitution are important variables that also affect the results. When a number of impact parameters are unknown, a reconstruction can take a great deal of time. An optimizer tool in PC-Crash is designed to minimize reconstruction time and error by automatically varying a selected number of impact parameters, comparing the resulting simulation for each combination of parameters with the actual incident.

To obtain the maximum output power and fuel economy from an internal combustion engine, it is often necessary to detect engine knock and operate the engine at its knock limit. This paper presents the ability to detect knock using in-cylinder ionization signals on a large displacement, air-cooled, “V” twin motorcycle engine over the engine operational map. The knock detection ability of three different sensors is compared: production knock (accelerometer) sensor, in-cylinder pressure sensor, and ionization sensor. The test data shows that the ionization sensor is able to detect knock better than the production knock sensor when there is high mechanical noise present in the engine.

In order to increase safety standards and to reduce CO2 emissions, advanced high strength steels (AHSS) are increasingly being used in the manufacturing of car bodies. As state of art the body mass of the latest vehicles already constitute more than 30% AHSS and the future target is to increase this to 60%. However unlike conventional high strength steels many OEMs find it challenging to apply AHSS due to the differences in forming behaviour, high strain-rate behaviour, weldability, and potential HIC delayed cracking. In the development and application of the new generation of AHSS a key enabler has been the use of a low carbon concept microalloyed with niobium (Nb). The present paper explains the fundamental concepts and metallurgy of low-carbon Nb-microalloyed AHSS.

Moto GP engines have since the year 2012 4 cylinders in V or inline layout for a total capacity of up to 1,000cc. With pneumatic valve spring but wet sump, and with the maximum bore limited to 81mm, the maximum speed these engines may have is about 18,000 rpm, with power outputs 250-260 HP. The paper presents the design of a 65 degree V4 Moto GP engine further optimizing the pneumatic poppet valve design, as well as a novel rotary valve design. The rotary valve permits up to extremely sharp opening or closing and very large gas exchange areas. The two engines are then modeled by using a 1D engine & gas dynamics simulation software package to assess the potentials of the solution. The improved design produces much larger power densities than the version of the engines with traditional poppet valves revving at higher speeds.