Automotive Science and Engineering

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Considering the present business competitive scenario, the automotive industry is under pressure to achieve higher productivity. A high level of performance and quality standard could be achieved through improving the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) of the equipment in an automotive industry. Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate the performance measurement through OEE theory in an Iranian automotive industry. Data and basic information collected from the Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) of the production assembly lines. In this case study, two different assembly lines such Peugeot and Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) were studied. The results indicated that the indices such availability rate, performance and quality for Peugeot assembly line obtained an OEE value of 0.99, 0.70 and 0.38, respectively, and, these indices for SUV assembly line obtained as 0.99, 0.39 and 0.53, respectively. Statistical analysis results of net operating time parameter for two assembly lines revealed that there is significant difference in the confidence level of 5% (P-value < 0.05). In addition, the OEE index for Peugeot and SUV assembly lines gained 0.27 and 0.21 over a period of one year. Consequently, to improve the OEE in the automotive assembly lines, managing the time losses by systematic planning of manufacturing and the implementation of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) are suggested.

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Driving cycle is used to assess fuel consumption, pollutant emissions and performance of the vehicle. The aim of this paper is to extract the driving cycle for refuse collection truck and estimate its braking energy. For this purpose, after selecting the target truck and geographic area, the equipment needed to measure the required variables were prepared and mounted on the truck. Then, the actual data were collected from the performance of the target Truck while performing its mission. Since the amount of braking energy depends on the speed, truck mass and road grade, the speed of the vehicle is measured simultaneously with the truck mass and road grade. The collected data are then processed and subdivided into micro-trips. The micro-trips are clustered according to the number of state spaces using the K-Means algorithm. Next, the representative micro trips are selected from within the clusters and the final driving cycle is generated. The representative driving cycle shows that the truck speed is zero at 47% of the working time. Finally, the amount of braking power and accumulative braking energy in the driving cycle is calculated.

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Today most countries, examine the problem of car pollution. They enacted laws to prevent environmental polluting cars. They also try to find out wither pollution standards are applied by cars manufacturers or not.  The purpose of this study is to rank domestically produced cars quality based on manufacturing technology and exhaust emissions. Variables HC, CO, O2, CO2, and λ are analyzed for 10 selected car types, and results are presented with a box chart and finally, the considered cars are ranked according to the scored values. In practice, regarding the results of pollution variable, domestically produced cars can be ranked in terms of pollution quality parameters.  According to the numeric range determined for each variable, a number is assigned to each car and finally, the average score is calculated for each car.
 

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In this study, the driver airbag geometry and internal pressure were considered as the main parameters to investigate the head injury severity in a frontal crash. The total energy absorption of an airbag was investigated in a drop test simulation and its rate was discussed by the depression distance parameter. On the other hand, the maximum deceleration of the impactor was determined to represent the airbag stiffness by a defined deceleration peak parameter. Thus, the depression distance and the deceleration peak were the objective functions for an isolated airbag under a lumped-mass impact simulation. Furthermore, an optimal matrix was generated using the design method of experiments (DOE) and yielded the airbag parameters as outputs. After the evaluation of the design parameters by the Taguchi method, the ANOVA method was used to predict the most effective parameters. Finally, a sled test with the 50% HYBRID III dummy and the defined airbag was simulated. An experimental crash was selected as the reference point to verify the simulation and to be used to compare the outcomes. Even though the objective function of depression distance showed contradictory effects to reduce the head injury severity, the results showed a %16.4 reduction in the driver head injury in a full-frontal crash.

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Today, many car manufacturers can achieve emission standards through catalytic converters. The goals of this research was in tow sections. Initially, the amount of pollutants was measured to determine the role of the catalytic converters in the reduction of pollutants for 3 types of vehicles and in 50 cases, in the two stages before and after the catalytic converter. Then, to achieve the useful life of the catalytic converter, out of 750 test vehicle emissions were tested. Data analysis was done by SPSS software, which shows that catalytic converters can reduce up to 80% of exhaust emissions. This is independent of the type of vehicle. The useful life of the catalytic converters is up to 36 months, so they should be replaced at least every three years. Also, the pollutant standards of the technical examination centers are reviewed. For this purpose, the pollutants have been measured in 2200 vehicles. Due to the huge difference in technology, cars are divided into two main categories of carburetor and injector and are analyzed statistically. Eventually, for each group of these vehicles, the values of HC, CO and O₂ are obtained.

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This paper presents an experimental study on the effect of adhesive thickness on the maximum load of adhesive joints under static and impact loading, using the double cantilever beam (DCB) test method. The DCB specimens were prepared with varying adhesive thicknesses and subjected to impact loading using a drop weight impact tester. The maximum load was recorded for each specimen. The results indicated that the maximum load of the adhesive joints increases with increasing adhesive thickness up to 5 mm, beyond which the maximum load decreases with further increase in adhesive thickness. Moreover, the failure mode of the adhesive joint was found to be strongly dependent on the adhesive thickness, with thicker adhesive layers exhibiting an adhesive failure mode but in thinner thicknesses, the adhesive mode is cohesive. These findings provide important insights into the design and optimization of adhesive joints for applications that are subject to impact loading.