Automotive Science and Engineering

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In this paper, an adaptive rule based controller for an anti-lock regenerative braking system (ARBS) of a series hybrid electric bus (SHEB) has been proposed. The proposed controller integrates the regenerative braking and wheel anti-lock functions by controlling the electric motor of the hybrid vehicle, without using any conventional mechanical anti-lock braking system. The performance of the proposed system is evaluated by a comprehensive vehicle dynamics model in MATLAB/Simulink. Using the designed ARBS, the braking and regenerative performances of SHEB have significantly improved in slippery roads while the slip ratios are kept between 0.15 and 0.20.

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Nonlinear hunting speeds of railway vehicles running on a tangent track are analytically obtained using Hopf bifurcation theory in this paper. The railway vehicle model consists of nonlinear primary yaw dampers, nonlinear flange contact stiffness as well as the clearance between the wheel flange and rail tread. Linear and nonlinear critical speeds are obtained using Bogoliubov method. A comprehensive parametric study is then carried out and effects of different parameters like the magnitudes of lateral clearance, damping values, wheel radius, bogie mass, lateral stiffness and the track gauge on linear and nonlinear hunting speeds are investigated.

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In recent years, the balanced score card (BSC) has been the focus of considerable methodology for strategic cost management in management accounting area since it was originally proposed by Kaplan ,R.S. and Norton, D.P. in 1992. BSC is an approach to performance measurement based on both financial and nonfinancial information from four perspectives which are called financial, customer, internal business process, and learning and growth, in order to balance the traditional financial performance system by several grouping of performance measures: short-term and long-term, internal and external, and current and future. Over time, it has been developed to a strategic management system from a comprehensive performance measure, and used in many organizations such as business, hospital, and autonomy in many countries. In this paper, we propose a general model based on BSC by introducing fuzzy inference mechanism. From this, specialists’ knowledge and experience can be effectively reflected during the construction of the practical model. Then we illustrate a practical example for an Automotive Manufacturing Co.

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Air pollution is one of the major issues about the diesel engines in todays' world. It is a special concern in those areas that have difficulty meeting health-based outdoor air quality standards. Natural gas has low emission and resource abundance and also conventional compression ignition engine can be easily converted to a dual fuel mode to use natural gas as main fuel and diesel as pilot injection. The main object of this work is to investigate the effect of number of injector nozzle hole on the combustion and exhaust emission in a gas engine ignited with diesel fuel. We use one and three-dimensional simulation in parallel way in order to analyze the performance and combustion process of a dual fuel engine. The experimental results have also reported and compared with the simulated data.

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The directional response and roll stability characteristics of a partly filled tractor semi-trailer vehicle, with cylindrical tank, are investigated in various maneuvers. The dynamic interaction of liquid cargo with the tractor semi-trailer vehicle is also evaluated by integrating a dynamic slosh model of the partly filled tank with five-degrees-of-freedom of a tractor semi-trailer tank model. The dynamic fluid slosh within the tank is modeled using three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations, coupled with volume-of-fluid equations and analysed using the FLUENT software. The coupled tank-vehicle model is subsequently analysed to determine the roll stability characteristics for different maneuvers. The results showed the interaction of fluid slosh with vehicle's dynamic. Another findings of this investigation also revealed that the roll stability of a tractor semi-trailer tank carrying liquid was highly affected by fluid sloshing and caused degradation of roll stability in comparison with vehicle carrying rigid cargo.

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Vehicular ad-hoc network (VANET) is an important component of intelligent transportation systems, in which vehicles are equipped with on-board computing and communication devices which enable vehicle-to-vehicle communication. Consequently, with regard to larger communication due to the greater number of vehicles, stability of connectivity would be a challenging problem. Clustering technique as one of the most important data mining techniques is a possible method that can improve the stability of connectivity in VANET. Stable communication within a VANET leads to enhanced driver safety and better traffic management. Therefore, this paper presented a novel clustering algorithm based on ant system-based algorithm called IASC in order to provide a fast clustering algorithm with high accuracy and improve the stability of VANET topology. A comparative study was proposed to analogize the results of the proposed algorithm with six VANET clustering algorithms in the literature which were taken as benchmarks. Results revealed improvement in stability and overhead on VANET.

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In this research, a high-temperature Rankin cycle (HTRC) with two-stage pumping is presented and investigated. In this cycle, two different pressures and mass flow rates in the HTRC result in two advantages. First, the possibility of direct recovery from the engine block by working fluid of water, which is a low quality waste heat source, is created in a HTRC. Secondly, by doing this, the mean effective temperature of heat addition increases, and hence the efficiency of the Rankin cycle also improves.
The proposed cycle was examined with the thermodynamic model. The results showed that in a HTRC with a two-stage pumping with an increase of 8% in the mean effective temperature of heat addition, the cycle efficiency is slightly improved. Although the operational work obtained from the waste heat recovery from the engine cooling system was insignificant, the effect of the innovation on the recovery from the exhaust was significant. The innovation seems not economical for this low produced energy. However, it should be said that although the effect of the innovation on the increase of the recovery cycle efficiency is low, the changes that must be implemented in the system are also low. 

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Recently, number of Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV) is on the rise due to concerns over environmental issues. By combining fuel and electricity as two sources of power, this type of vehicle is capable of bettering fuel economy and lowering emission. In this work, fuel and electrical energy consumption of a parallel hybrid electric vehicle are investigated through TEH-CAR urban drive cycle. For this purpose, a forward looking model is developed in AVL CRUISE M. To ensure adequacy of the model and take engine gas path components’ dynamic interaction into account, a crank based model with individual cylinders is utilized. Furthermore, a throttle filter is presented to slow down engine’s response and also, allow the electric motor to have the larger share of delivering power in transients. Finally, genetic algorithm is used to find optimal values for throttle filter parameter and electric motor load ratio, in order to have minimal overall fuel and electrical energy consumption. The optimization results show 1.2% of fuel and 20.2% of total energy consumption reduction in comparison with conventional torque assist.

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In this paper, to address the problem of using displacement sensors in measuring the transverse vibration of engine accessory belt, a novel non-contact method based on machine vision and Mask-RCNN model is proposed. Mask-RCNN model was trained using the videos captured by a high speed camera. The results showed that RCNN model had an accuracy of 93% in detection of the accessory belt during the test. Afterward, the belt curve was obtained by a polynomial regression to obtain its performance parameters. The results showed that normal vibration of the center of the belt was in the range of 2 to 3 mm, but the maximum vibration was 8.7 mm and happened in the engine speed of 4200 rpm. Also, vibration frequency of the belt was obtained 124 Hz. Moreover, the minimum belt oscillation occurred at the beginning point of the belt on the TVD pulley, whereas the maximum oscillation occurred at a point close to the center of the belt at a distance of 16 mm from it. The results show that the proposed method can effectively be used for determination of the transvers vibration of the engine accessory belts, because despite the precise measurement of the belt vibration at any point, can provide the instantaneous position curve of all belt points and the equation of the belt curve at any moment. Useful information such as the belt point having the maximum vibration, belt slope, vibration frequency and scatter band of the belt vibration can be obtained as well.

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The development and adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) appears to be an excellent way to mitigate environmental problems such as climate change and global warming exacerbated by the transportation sector. However, it faces numerous challenges, such as optimal locations for EV charging stations and underdeveloped EVCS infrastructure, among the major obstacles. The present study is based on the location planning of charging stations in real cases of central and densely populated districts of Tehran, the capital of Iran. In order to achieve this goal, this paper attempts to validate the results of a previous study in another country. Secondly, by employing preceding principals in accordance with relevant information collected from the car park and petrol stations in the regions of study, a five-integer linear program is proposed based on a weighted set coverage model considering EV users' convenience, daily life conditions, and investment costs, and finally optimally solved by genetic algorithm under various distribution conditions; normal, uniform, Poisson and exponential, to specify the location and number of EV charging stations in such a way that EV drivers can have access to chargers, within an acceptable driving range.

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The braking system has always been considered one of the most significant vehicle subsystems since it plays a key role in safety issues. To design such a complex system, modeling can be a helpful tool for designers to save time and costs. In this paper, the hydraulic braking system of a B-Class vehicle was modeled by simulating the relationship between brake components such as pedals, boosters, main cylinders, and wheel cylinders, with the vehicle dynamics by using the existing models of the tire and their dynamic relationships. The performed modeling was compared with the results of a concerning vehicle's direct movement. The results of this comparison showed that our modeling is very close to the experimental data. The braking distance parameter was selected to examine the effects of each braking component on the vehicle dynamics. The results of investigating the effect of different parameters of the braking system on the dynamic behavior of the vehicle indicated that the main cylinder diameter, the diameter of the front and rear wheels’ brake cylinders, the effective diameter of the front disk, and the diameter of the rear drum are the most effective design parameters in vehicle's braking system and optimal results are obtained by applying changes to these parameters.

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Fleet routing is one of the basic solutions to meet the good demand of customers in which decisions are made based on the limitations of product supply warehouses, time limits for sending orders, variety of products and the capacity of fleet vehicles. Although valuable efforts have been made so far in modeling and solving the fleet routing problem, there is still a need for new solutions to further make the model more realistic. In most research, the goal is to reach the shortest distance to supply the desired products. Time window restrictions are also applied with the aim of reducing product delivery time. In this paper, issues such as customers' need for multiple products, limited warehouses in terms of the type and number of products that can be offered, and also the uncertainty about handling a customer's request or the possibility of canceling a customer order are considered. We used the random model method to deal with the uncertainty of customer demand. A fuzzy clustering method was also proposed for customer grouping. The final model is an integer linear optimization model that is solved with the powerful tools of Mosek and Yalmip. Based on the simulation results, it was identified to what extent possible and accidental changes in customer behavior could affect shipping costs. It was also determined based on these results that the effective parameters in product distribution, such as vehicle speed, can be effective in the face of uncertainty in customer demand.