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The control over particulate emissions is becoming increasingly important in modern diesel engines for Heavy Duty applications, that will comply to more and more stringent emissions norms. Use of particulate traps is an effective means of achieving this with the need to regenerate the particulate trap being imperative. Passive regeneration using NO2 by conversion of NO, as well as regeneration at lower temperatures with catalyzed DPF and the influence of NOx to soot ratio on this, is the subject of the paper. Both coated and uncoated filters in fresh and aged state are evaluated at temperatures typical of passive NO2 and Oxygen-based soot regenerations and the results discussed.

This paper covers the test work done on the comparative characterization of particulates using different blends of biofuels (like biodiesel and ethanol in diesel fuel) in light commercial vehicle under different operating conditions. The test vehicle selected was equipped with Direct Injection (DI) diesel engine with inline fuel injection pump. Under transient operating condition (Indian Driving Cycle), the results indicate that with increased percentage of biodiesel (upto 20%) in the blend, particulate concentration decreases. However, with 5% ethanol diesel blend, particulate concentration increases when compared with neat diesel as well as biodiesel blends while mass concentrations are lower with both the biofuels as compared to neat diesel. It is observed that the nanoparticles are higher with 5% ethanol diesel in IDC test mode.

For protecting human health and preserving the clean environment, current regulations stipulate acceptable levels of particulate emissions based on the mass collected on filters obtained by sampling in diluted exhaust. Such regulations will be imposed not only on-road engines but also off-road engines. From the point of view of human health [1], so-called nano-particle (d<50nm) is thought to be nuisance because it could reach deeper lung tissue. So, many researches have been done in this research field [2]. A series of experiments were conducted on an off-road general purpose direct Injection (DI) diesel engine using EEPS (Engine Exhaust Particle Sizer) to make real time particle size distribution measurements possible. The data presented covers whole operating conditions including the operating modes of off-road diesel engine emission test (C1mode). Additionally, PM emissions in transient (NRTC test cycle) engine operation were examined.

One of the possible solutions in order to reduce NOX and PM emissions and fuel specific consumption in a diesel engine is to substitute a part of the diesel oil with a gaseous fuel. Natural gas, due to the high octane number, allows such substitution without great modifications to the original engine, just introducing the gas feeding system. The utilization of natural gas (usually referred as “alternative fuel”) instead of oil is an important advantage of such technology in terms of energy sources. In this paper the conversion of the IVECO 8360.46R engine, for bus applications, to dual-fuel operations is discussed. Experimental tests were performed to define the general behaviour of the engine, especially at partial loads. Main target of the present study was the analysis of engine requirements to maintain the same output load as the full-diesel operation, and controlling exhaust emissions.

The aim of the current study was to construct a model of a road rail vehicle in JACK and investigate the view of the articulating arm of the machine for human models of different stature in test conditions simulating a digging task and a lifting task. The JACK software was also used to determine the likely effects on operator comfort of postural adjustments which would be required to see different parts of the articulating arm. Modelling of the tasks using JACK has been a useful first step in identifying the limitations in the field of view for vehicle operators of different statures. The use of the view cones in JACK have been evaluated and the simulations have highlighted the potential for discomfort arising from postural adjustments which would be necessary in the tasks. Further research on operators' postures and visual strategies during real world digging and lifting tasks is now necessary.

The Tapered Element Oscillating Microbalance (TEOM) measures captured particle mass continuously on a small filter held on an oscillating element. In addition to traditional filter-based particulate matter (PM) measurement, a TEOM was used to characterize PM from the dilute exhaust of trucks examined in two phases (Phase 1.5 and Phase 2) of the Coordinating Research Council (CRC) Heavy-Duty Vehicle Emissions Inventory Project E-55/E-59. Test schedules employed were the Heavy Heavy-Duty Diesel Truck (HHDDT) test schedule that consists of four modes (Idle, Creep, Transient and Cruise), the HHDDT Short (HHDDT_S) which represents high-speed freeway operation, and the Heavy-Duty Urban Dynamometer Driving Schedule (UDDS). TEOM results were on average 6% lower than those from traditional particulate filter weighing. Data (in units of g/cycle) were examined by plotting cycle-averaged TEOM mass against filter mass. Regression (R2) values for these plots were from 0.88 to 0.99.

Intercity tractor-trailers and other vehicles with diesel engines idle a significant portion of the time. Idling also produces airborne emissions and noise; a number of cities and states have banned or restricted idling to reduce pollution and noise. Reducing idling truck idling is thus an important environmental issue. In the freight transportation industry, a large part of the idling time is due to off-road heating and air conditioning. The heating ventilating and air conditioning systems (HVAC systems) in use today on internal combustion vehicles do not lend themselves to efficient application in vehicles having long idling period, especially in the trucks market. An integrated climate control system has been developed over the past seven years. Applying a high-efficiency thermal storage technology (based on phase change of specific materials), the Climate Control System has been implemented in long haul trucks to reduce idling (for “off road and off engine” heating and cooling).

A Stewart & Stevenson M1084A1 FMTV 5-ton cargo truck was used as the subject of a study to evaluate advanced powertrain thermal management components and subsystems. Funded by the U.S. Army TACOM and the National Automotive Center (NAC) under a Small Business Innovative Research grant (SBIR Phase II), the project focused on improving thermal management of the vehicle while reducing the peak fuel consumption by >10% in a vehicle having limited ram air cooling. The FMTV was used as a surrogate test bed to investigate thermal management technologies that could be applied to vehicles with confined package space, such as light armored vehicles. The vehicle was equipped with a thermal management system featuring distributed system architecture, electric coolant pumps and fans, electronic control valve, multiple air-cooled heat exchangers, and an electronic control system with PID feedback. The entire thermal management system was mounted in a metal enclosure behind the truck cab.

The focus of this paper is to understand, from experimental data, the R134a refrigerant emission rates of various hose materials due to permeation. This paper focuses on four main points for hose assembly emission of R134a: (1) characteristics of hose permeation in response to the effect of oil in R134a and the characteristics of hose permeation of vapor vs. liquid refrigerant; (2) conditioning of the hose material over time to reach steady state R134a emission; (3) the relative contribution of hose permeation and coupling emission to the overall hose assembly refrigerant emission; (4) transient emission rates due to transient temperature and pressure conditions. Studies include hoses with different materials and constructions resulting in various levels of R134a permeation.

In this paper, a study on the effects of track irregularities on the dynamic responses of a magnetically levitated (Maglev) train is presented. The track here is a combination of concrete guideway, rails and ribs. Its irregularities can be due to the flexibility and the unevenness of the track. The Maglev train is modeled as a system with six degrees of freedom. The fundamental dynamic characteristics of each components of the Maglev train are obtained from the detailed finite element analysis. It is the goal of the paper to identify the elements of the track irregularities that have major effect on the dynamic responses of the moving Maglev train. The results may lead to a better track design that induces less vertical displacement and acceleration of the Maglev train, which in turn can make the control of the train easier.

Vital to the effectiveness of simulation-based design is having a model of known quality of the system being designed. The purpose of this paper is to validate a simplified dynamic model of an FMTV (Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles) for a range of system parameters using a previously developed technique for determining model robustness and accuracy within a design space. The literature provides an algorithm called AVASIM (Accuracy and Validity Algorithm for Simulation) for assessing model validity systematically and quantitatively. AVASIM assess the validity of a model based on a specific input and set of system parameters. The literature also defines a procedure for evaluating the robustness and accuracy of a model with respect to input and system parameter variations based on the AVASIM algorithm.

When heavy-duty truck emissions rates are expressed in distance-specific units (such as g/mile), average speed and the degree of transient behavior of the vehicle activity can affect the emissions rate. Previous one-dimensional studies have shown some correlation of distance-specific emissions rates between cycles. This paper reviews emissions data sets from the 5-mode CARB Heavy Heavy-Duty Diesel Truck (HHDDT) Schedule, the Heavy Duty Urban Dynamometer Driving Schedule (UDDS) and an inspection and maintenance cycle, known as the AC5080. A heavy-duty chassis dynamometer was used for emissions characterization along with a full-scale dilution tunnel. The vehicle test weights were simulated at 56,000 lbs. Two-dimensional correlations were used to predict the emissions rate on one mode or cycle from the rates of two other modes or cycles.

The four wheel steer system better known as the Quadra Steer system (QS4) is a system that provides steering control of the rear wheel of long based pickups and large sport utilities. Analysis was utilized to develop Rear/Front (R/F) steering algorithm with the vehicle in it's normal mode which is characterized as vehicle at curb + 2 passengers or GVW/RGAWR on dry surface. Analysis utilized BZ3 control response simulation model to conduct this study. This dynamic model was used to evaluate key vehicle handling parameters to validate and optimize the algorithm.

This paper discusses the improvement of a heavy truck anti-lock brake system (ABS) model currently used by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in conjunction with multibody vehicle dynamics software. Accurate modeling of this complex system is paramount in predicting real-world dynamics, and significant improvements in model accuracy are now possible due to recent access to ABS system data during on-track experimental testing. This paper focuses on improving an existing ABS model to accurately simulate braking under limit braking maneuvers on high and low-coefficient surfaces. To accomplish this, an ABS controller model with slip ratio and wheel acceleration thresholds was developed to handle these scenarios. The model was verified through testing of a Class VIII 6×4 straight truck. The Simulink brake system and ABS model both run simultaneously with TruckSim, with the initialization and results being acquired through Matlab.

The use of composite materials in the automotive industry has become increasingly widespread. With this increase in use, techniques for non-destructive testing (NDT) have become more and more important. Various optical NDT inspective methods such as holography, moiré techniques, and shearography have been used for material testing. Among these methods, shearography appears to be most practical. Shearography has a simple optical setup due to its “self-referencing” system, and it is relatively insensitive against rigid-body motions. Measurements of displacement derivatives, and thus strain directly, rather than the displacement itself is achieved through this method. Therefore shearography detects defects in objects by correlating anomalies of strain which are usually easier than correlating the anomalies of the displacement itself, as in holography. To date shearography has shown potential as a NDT tool for identifying defects in small structures.

With ever-increasing concern for the occupant safety, it is desirable that the design of truck cab should meet the safety requirements specified in ECE R-29. The cab must be designed in such a way that, sufficient survival space to be guaranteed in the event of accident for the safety of the driver and co-driver. It was found that there are some areas, which are not covered by the standard or the standard is not very clear. This paper discusses about the practical problems incurred during implementation of the standard in Indian scenario and also suggests possible practical solutions.

Most particulate traps efficiently retain soot of diesel engine exhaust but the potential hazard to form secondary emissions has to be controlled. The Diesel Particle Filter (DPF) regeneration is mainly supported by metal additives or metallic coatings. Certain noble or transition metals can support the formation of toxic secondary emissions such as Dioxins, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH), Nitro-PAH or other volatile components. Furthermore, particulate trap associated with additive metals can penetrate through the filter system or coating metals can be released from coated systems. The VERT test procedure was especially developed to assess the potential risks of a formation of secondary pollutants in the trap. The present study gives an overview to the VERT test procedure. Aspects of suitability of different fuel additives and coating metals will be discussed and examples of trap and additive induced formation of toxic secondary emissions will be presented.

This paper consists of two parts, modeling of passive sequential strut and modeling of 8-DOF high mobility tracked vehicle incorporating the strut. In first part, a tunable passive, sequential, heavy-duty hydro-pneumatic mono-tube strut is discussed to achieve variable damping for a tracked vehicle suspension. The hydro-pneumatic strut is modeled as a nonlinear dynamical system incorporating nonlinearities due to orifice flow, gas spring and pressure relief mechanisms. The shock and vibration isolation performance of hydro-pneumatic strut are evaluated and compared to the vehicle model employing a constant orifice strut. It is shown that the vehicle ride performance is improved considerably using an adequately tuned sequential hydro-pneumatic strut. In second part, a twelve-road wheel high mobility tracked vehicle, is modeled as an 8 degrees-of-freedom in-plane non-linear dynamic system incorporating bounce and pitch motion of the sprung mass and bounce motion on six road wheels.

When a new commercial vehicle project begins or some changes are necessary in the current products, the development of clutch pedals has a strong dependence with the powertrain characteristics which generally affects the clutch behavior and its actuation system. Although theoretical analyses are always taken into consideration, experimental procedures in bench tests and vehicles play an important role in the determination of new configurations for the clutch actuation system. Nowadays cost reduction, unification and quality gains must be considered in the project and development process. The above considerations mean that the work in bench tests regarding clutch actuation systems must be emphasized to simulate their behavior in the vehicle.

There is a large variation in the results of the durability of friction facings in field applications and in most cases there is very little information about the conditions in which the vehicle operated and therefore it was decided to developed a test procedure capable of containing all the different conditions of a vehicle. For this works statistical applications such as DOE (Experimental Design for Experiment) were used to help in planning and to obtain of equations of the tests results and Weibull curves for statistical analysis and comparison of failure mode. By this mean, it was possible to determine a correlation of the results on wear between the bench test and mileage covered on vehicle up to total wear. Therefore it is new possible to estimate the durability of friction facing on vehicles based on bench tests and also obtain knowledge about the behave of the material relative to energy and working temperature.