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The accurate confirmation of fuel economy benefits arising from the use of a gasoline additive package is a difficult exercise. In order to fully understand, and accurately quantify, the interaction between the treated fuel and the engine it is necessary to carry out a fleet test which allows the benefit to be measured precisely yet under realistic conditions. A series of road tests, based on a ‘paired fleet’ design, has been carried out over the last two decades. Careful analysis of the results of these tests has led to the design of a new fleet testing protocol based around ‘quads’ rather than pairs of vehicles. This new test protocol also incorporates advances in vehicle selection and preparation procedures and has resulted in a test that is both more robust and flexible, and that achieves even better resolution than before.

For years, gear and gerotor type pumps have been common in Continuously Variable Transmissions (CVT). In their efforts to improve power density and efficiency of the CVT, engineers are showing interest in other pump types that can better cope with the increasing demands. The raising of CVT pressure levels, to enable higher torque and increased variator efficiency, makes that issues like the hydraulic system effectiveness and efficiency have become increasingly important. Dual stroke vane pumps provide an answer. They basically form two independent, not necessarily identical, pumps that can work at different pressure levels. They enable the design of cost-effective solutions like switch-able or separated high/low pressure circuits within a single pump unit. This offers a better answer to the hydraulic power requirements of the CVT. Furthermore, the vane design is compact and provides high volumetric efficiency at low speeds even without measures like axial pressure compensation.

Gasoline engines employ various mechanisms for improvement of fuel consumption and reduction of exhaust emissions to deal with environmental problems. Direct fuel injection is one such technology. This paper presents a new quasi-dimensional combustion model applicable to direct injection gasoline engine. The Model consists of author's original in-cylinder turbulence and mixture homogeneity sub model suitable for direct fuel injection conditions. Model validation results exhibit good agreement with experimental and 3D CFD data at steady state and transient operating conditions.

The fundamental understanding of mixture formation and combustion process taking place in a DI diesel engine cylinder is an important parameter for engine design since they affect engine performance and pollutant emissions. Multi-dimensional CFD models are used for detailed simulation of these processes, but suffer from complexity and require significant computational time. The purpose of our work is to develop a new quasi-dimensional 3D combustion model capable of describing the air fuel mixing, combustion and pollutant formation mechanisms, on an engine cycle by cycle basis, needing reasonably low computational time compared to CFD ones, while describing in a more fundamental way the various processes compared to existing multi-zone phenomenological models. As a result, a number of problems associated with the application of multi-zone models are resolved.

Gasoline engine control continues to become more sophisticated and so the amount of software has reached 10 to 20 times that of early control systems. By changing the embedded microcomputer from 8bit CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer) to 32bit RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer), processing performance has been improved 100 times. This paper evaluates quantitative performance of the RISC CPU having a FPU (Floating Point Processing Unit) and describes an example application to adaptive control.

An efficient light weight 425 Watts charging system was developed and built to meet the requirements of a 12-cylinder engine for racing application. The new system consists of a permanent magnet (PM) alternator with MAGNEQUENCH (MQ3) magnets and a high frequency switching regulator to regulate the output voltage over the engine speed range of 2,000-12,000 rpm. The system has been tested for 75% overall efficiency as compared to 38% for the present system over most of the speed range. Excellent dynamic response (less than 1 ms) has been measured, which allows the alternator to support pulsed loads, even if the battery is disconnected during operation. The new system weighs 3.73 kg vs 5.4 kg of the existing system.

Presenting a brand new approach to heat exchangers for engines, transmissions, hydraulic systems, etc. This new heat exchanger is made of only two pieces of circular extruded aluminum profiles: Core and shell. No soldering: The core and the shell is assembled by a minimum of automated work. In an oil to water cooling application, the active surface on the oil side of the core is enlarged by fins 0.2 mm thick, 0.3 mm spacing, and 3 mm high. The fins are made in unique production machines and enlarge the active surface area approximately five times compared to a conventional heat exchanger of the same dimensions. The principle utilizes the low pressure drop at laminar flow and avoids the disadvantage of low heat transfer after a certain laminar flow length. The result is approximately three times higher oil heat dissipation, combined with very low oil pressure drop, compared to conventional technique.

This paper describes a new range of 4 cyl, in-line, single OHC engines produced by Ford in Europe, which is available in three displacements of 1.3, 1.6, and 2.0 1. This engine has been developed for high performance output, high-speed operation, and compliance with various exhaust emission regulations. The significant design features highlighted here are the cylinder block, the cylinder head, the valve arrangement, the intake manifolds, and air cleaners with an air intake pre-heat system, all of which are described here. To establish reliability of this new engine, special test runs were made of 300 engines under customer driving conditions in many countries, covering a total of approximately 10 million km.

The new generation of air disc brakes developed by PERROT is suitable for Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) from classes 4 to 8. Their design, construction and function is described in this paper. In addition, it is explained in which way the brakes are tested and proven on the different test rigs and in the vehicle.

This paper concerns a new technique designed to provide high performance reaction control systems for sounding rockets. Proportional control of differential thrust and simple adaptive control of thrust magnitude (based on the level of demanded thrust) is utilized. The control is being implemented with a combination of electronic and fluidic components for an Aerobee 150 sounding rocket payload whose goal is a pointing stability of 0.1 arc second.

Currently used instruments for the analysis of total inorganic carbon (TIC) and total organic carbon (TOC) in water and wastewater samples require the use of hazardous chemicals which is not acceptable in their application for long-term space missions. A new design concept of the “reagentless” carbon analyzer (RCA) for determination of both TIC and TOC for water quality monitoring in space is proposed and tested. The concept is based on generating all the chemicals needed for the TIC and TOC analysis within the instrument, and avoiding the need for storing a supply of chemicals. The chemicals are either generated or recirculated in the instrument, or an alternative approach for their use is developed, such as using photocatalytic oxidation instead of oxidizing chemicals for TOC analysis. The fully developed miniaturized instrument will incorporate microfluidic based design principles.

The paper has presented a new reduced chemical kinetic model for the Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) combustion of n-heptane in an engine, which contains 41 species and 63 reactions. The new model includes three sub-models: the first is the low-temperature reaction sub-model, which is established by determining particular aldehydes and small hydrocarbons in the model developed by Li et al. The second is the sub-model for large molecules decomposing directly into small molecules that is developed for linking the low-temperature reaction with high-temperature reaction. The third is used for high-temperature reaction, which is derived by several modifications to the model developed by Griffiths et al., eliminating several reactions, adding two oxidization reactions related to CO and CH3O.

Airline aircraft maintenance and ground support services meet at the connection points for ground service. Ground power must be applied to the aircraft, but responsibility for the aircraft receptacle falls to aircraft maintenance. This responsibility gap is not currently being addressed by the industry. For years any difficulty in applying power to an aircraft on the ground has been blamed solely on the ground power cable or generator. Any potential problems with the receptacles was largely ignored by ground service personnel, since they are not allowed to touch the aircraft. No one thought to look closely at the receptacle as a potential source of the inability to reliably apply power to the aircraft (in fact, routine maintenance A,B,C or D maintenance did not routinely check or change the receptacle).

Today's automotive and electronics technologies are evolving so rapidly that educators and industry are both challenged to re-educate the technological workforce in the new area before they are replaced with yet another generation. In early November 2009 Ford's Product Development senior management formally approved a proposal by the University of Detroit Mercy to transform 125 of Ford's “IC Engine Automotive Engineers” into “Advanced Electric Vehicle Automotive Engineers.” Two months later, the first course of the Advanced Electric Vehicle Program began in Dearborn. UDM's response to Ford's needs (and those of other OEM's and suppliers) was not only at the rate of “academic light speed,” but it involved direct collaboration of Ford's electric vehicle leaders and subject matter experts and the UDM AEV Program faculty.

A new portable ride comfort meter was developed, which gives a new index called “VN” (Vibration Number) as an objective measure of ride comfort of passenger cars. In order to develop this apparatus, the subjective evaluation test on whole-body vibration was carried out using the dual axis vibration table. This ride comfort meter is composed of a calculator for converting measured vibration inputs to a human body into “VN”, three accelerometers connected to the calculator and weighting filters for adjusting an accelerometer output to vibration feeling. One accelerometer detects a vertical vibration input at seat cushion, another detects a vertical vibration input at feet and the other detects a lateral vibration input at seat back. The VN index indicated by the apparatus is fixed at zero corresponding to the threshold of seated person to vertical vibration in case when no vibration exists at feet and seat back, and fixed at one hundred corresponding to the short time exposure limit.

An overview of the development of a NASA ride comfort model is presented. A new instrument is described, the Ride Quality Meter, which incorporates the NASA-developed model to characterize ride comfort based upon measurement of vehicle interior noise and vibration. The meter is a portable unit which provides real-time estimates of passenger ride comfort during actual vehicle operations. It provides the first known capability to directly sum the effects of noise and vibration into a single objective comfort index. The meter has been shown to be applicable to passenger cars, trucks, buses, trains, aircraft, and a wide variety of special purpose transportation systems. Data is summarized demonstrating application to automobiles and helicopters. The meter has been shown to perform as a reliable and accurate passenger jury.

In today's aircraft assembly process several new features make drilling operations very challenging according to production requirements. Parts are made of thin or thick multi-material stacks with a large scope to cover and complex assembly sequences. In addition, the current ramp-up in aircraft programs involves to improve productivity while keeping process quality and reliability. In this context robotic solution meets perfectly all these requirements as it is flexible, reconfigurable, fast and agile. Among the possible end-effectors, the Barrel Multi-Function End Effector (BMFEE) appears to be the most flexible solution to allow many different process configurations. The latest developments have been focused on the drilling equipment of this BMFEE. In fact the drilling process efficiency can be constantly improved especially in terms of reliability, quality and productivity. Therefore vibration-assisted drilling system has been integrated into the BMFEE drilling module.

Safety factors have been used widely in the design of beams for many years. It is still the major design method used in the industry. The advantage of using safety factors is that it is simple and easy to understand by the designer. However, the disadvantages of using it are that the product may be under-designed or over-designed depending on the safety factor value chosen, and the designers do not know what reliability they have designed into the product. In this paper, a new Robust Engineering Design-By-Reliability method is introduced. Using this method, the designers are able to know the designed-in reliability of their beams at the outset, thus avoiding the under- or over- design situations. Also in this paper, the safety factor based method and the Robust Engineering Design-By-Reliability method are compared. From the comparison it can be seen that the Robust Engineering Design-By-Reliability method is much more cost effective.

One way to increase efficiency and performance of 2-stroke engines is the addition of an exhaust valve to control the opening/closure of the exhaust port. With this implementation it is possible to change the exhaust timing for different conditions. However, conventional systems cannot change the exhaust opening and closure timings independently. The work herein presented shows the development of a new exhaust rotary valve enabling the control of the opening independently from the control of the closure of the exhaust port. The study is based on kinetic and thermodynamic analysis. Some manufacturers use exhaust rotary valves but none of them performs a fully rotary motion. This kind of motion has various benefits such as smoothness and most notably the ability to control both the opening and the closure timing of the exhaust independently. Regarding the kinematic analysis, a simple model was created to determine the most suitable valve angles.

Rotating clutches play an important role in automatic transmissions (AT), dual-clutch transmissions (DCT) and hybrid transmissions. It is very important to continually improve the transmission systems in the areas such as simplifying actuator designs, reducing cost and increasing controllability. A new concept of electrical motor driven actuation using a wedge mechanism, a wedge clutch, demonstrates potential benefits. This wedge clutch has the characteristics of good mechanical advantage, self-reinforcement, and faster and more precise controllability using electrical motor. In this paper, a new rotating wedge clutch is proposed. It presents a challenge since the motor actuator has to be stationary while the clutch piston is rotating. A new mechanism to connect the motor to the wedge piston, including dual-plane bearings and two mechanical ramp linkages, is studied. The design and verification of the physical structure of the actuator are discussed in detail in the paper.