Automotive Science and Engineering

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Increase of environmental pollution and restricted emission legislations have forced companies to produce automobiles with lower air pollutants. In this respect, discharge of blowby gases into the environment has been prohibited and their recirculation into the combustion chamber is proposed as an alternative solution. In addition, using EGR technique to control and reduce nitrogen oxides in internal combustion engines has been quite effective. An important common feature of these two methods is the fact that improper EGR/blowby distribution leads to the increase in other pollutants and the significant engine power reduction. Therefore, the study of important factors in maldistribution of the injected gases is of great practical importance. Besides the injection position that has significant role on distribution of injected gases, it seems that other parameters such as engine speed, injection velocity and angle may affect the distribution of injected gases. In this numerical study, a new technique is used to determine the effect of these parameters on distribution of injected EGR or blowby gases into the EF7 intake manifold. Numerical calculations are performed for three injection velocities, five injection angles and three different engine speeds. It was found that recirculated gases distribution is slightly influenced by the injection angle and injection velocity, while the engine speed is the most influential factor.

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The HCCI combustion process is initiated due to auto-ignition of fuel/air mixture which is dominated by chemical kinetics and therefore fuel composition has a significant effect on engine operation and a detailed reaction mechanism is essential to analysis HCCI combustion. A single zone-model permits to have a detailed chemical kinetics modeling for practical fuels. In this study a single-zone thermodynamic model with detail chemical mechanism is developed to investigate the effect of hydrogen addition to natural gas in a homogeneous charge compression ignition combustion and to analyze the performance and emissions of the HCCI engine. The effect of five different percentage of hydrogen added to natural gas ranging from 0 to 40 on HCCI combustion is investigated in this study. The results indicate that by increasing hydrogen portion in intake mixture, start of combustion advances and maximum temperature increase, but increasing in maximum pressure is negligible. Carbon’s included emissions such as Co, Co2 and unburned hydrocarbons decreases by increasing of hydrogen, and also, specific fuel consumption decreases. The result shows that hydrogen improves combustion characteristics of natural gas in an HCCI engine and leads to better performance and less emissions.

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This article aims at strategic vision to technology and suggests a strategic planning for this purpose. The main emphasis in this article is on strategic report compilation in the framework of strategic vision and covers issues such as identification of strategic planning dimensions and strategic vision levels, technology priority setting, environment monitoring, focus on costumer needs, methods of strategic vision compilation and future research methods. This article also concentrates on R&D strategies in a separate section. Furthermore, a separate section is dedicated to strategic vision in automotive industry and issues are discussed related to Iran Khodro Co. strategic visions. At the end, a model is presented for strategic vision compilation.

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The current regulated particle metric in vehicle emissions is the total mass, while during last decade interest in number size distribution has increased. Various international studies on epidemiology and toxicology have reported the adverse effect of the particle matter on public health. The UNECE group of experts on pollution and energy (GRPE) under particle measurement program (PMP) are under the process of finalization long term certification standard concerning particle emissions. The current study was done in order to investigate the number concentration from a range of Indian multi utility vehicles. These were equipped with various sizes of diesel engine over the new European driving cycle (NEDC) cycle using same oil specification. The vehicles chosen were meeting emission norms ranging from Euro3 (E-3) to Euro5 (E-5) and using the corresponding fuel specification as specified for the norms. In order to meet the strict emission norms, penetration of common rail injection system in the Indian market is inevitable. The use of higher injection pressure, advanced after treatment systems such as diesel particle filters (DPF), is the motivation for the work to access the number concentration, an important metric of particle matter in view of future emission norms. It is clearly revealed that different vehicles equipped with different capacity engines exhibits similar diesel particle emission characteristics. Also, as the particle mass is decreasing with the stringent emission norms reduces the particle number concentration.

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In this study it has been tried, to compare results and convergence rate of sensitivity analysis and conjugate gradient algorithms to reduce fuel consumption and increasing engine performance by optimizing the timing of opening and closing valves in XU7/L3 engine. In this study, considering the strength and accuracy of simulation GT-POWER software in researches on the internal combustion engine, this software has been used. In this paper initially all components of engine have been modeled in GT-POWER. Then considering the experimental result, results confirmed the accuracy of the model. After model verification, GT-POWER model with MATLAB-SIMULINK are coupled each other, to control the inputs and the outputs by sensitivity analysis and conjugate gradient algorithms. Then the results compared with experimental results of initial engine too. The results indicated that optimal valve timing significantly reduced brake specific fuel consumption and when is used variable valve system for opening and closing angle of intake and exhaust valves, the mean improvement percentage in brake specific fuel consumption from sensitivity analysis is nearly 5.87 and from conjugate gradient is about 6.69. too, for example with increasing engine speed late closing intake valve causes optimized brake specific fuel consumption and from 3500rpm this trend stops and in 4000rpm and 4500rpm early closing of intake valve results in more optimized brake specific fuel consumption. Then up to 6000rpm again late closing of valve would be favorable. Also results indicated that convergence rate of conjugate gradient algorithm to reaching the optimal point is more than sensitivity analysis algorithm.

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Global air pollution is a serious threat caused by excessive use of fossil fuels for transportation. Despite the fact that diesel fuel is a big environmental pollutant as it contains different hydrocarbons, sulphur and crude oil residues, it is yet regarded as a highly critical fuel due to its wide applications. Nowadays, biodiesel as a renewable additive is blended with diesel fuel to achieve numerous advantages such as lowering CO2, and CO emissions as well as higher lubricity. However, a few key drawbacks including higher production cost, deteriorated performance and likelihood to increase nitrogen oxide emissions have also been attributed to the application of diesel-biodiesel blends. Expanded polystyrene (EPS), known as a polymer for packaging and insulation, is an ideal material for energy recovery as it holds high energy value (1 kg of EPS is equivalent to 1.3 liters of liquid fuel). In this study, biodiesel was applied as a solvent of expanded polystyrene (EPS) during a special chemical and physical treatment. Various percentages of EPS in biodiesel blended diesel were tested to evaluate the fuel properties, emissions and performance of CI engine. The results of the variance analysis revealed that the addition of the additive improved diesel fuel properties by increasing the flash point as well as the reduction of density and viscosity. Despite a 3.6% reduction in brake power, a significant decrease in brake specific fuel consumption (7.26%) and an increase in brake thermal efficiency (7.83%) were observed at the full load and maximum speed of the engine. Additionally, considerable reductions of CO, CO2, NOx and smoke were achieved.

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This thesis looked at the effect of clay and silt soil blocking the heat transfer area of the radiator and its effect on the engine coolant through the conduct of experiments and a mathematical model developed. The results indicated that the percentage area covered resulted in a proportional increase of the inlet and outlet temperatures of the coolant in the radiator. The mathematically model developed also predicted the experimental data very well. Regression analysis pointed out that every 10% increase area of the radiator covered with silt soil resulted in an increase of about 17 oC of the outlet temperature of the radiator coolant. Similarly, using clay as a cover material, 10% of the area covered of the radiator resulted in an increase of about 20 oC of the outlet temperature of the radiator coolant. Statistical analysis pointed to the fact that the result obtained for clay, silt and the mathematical model were not significantly different. Thus, irrespective of the type of material that blocks the radiator surface area, the coolant rises with proportion of the radiator covered.

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In this paper, finite element elastic contact analysis of a functionally graded (FG) hollow brake disk in contact with pad, subjected to rotation, contact pressure and frictional heat is presented. The material properties vary through the thickness according to a power-law characterised by a grading index, n. The material property is purely steel at the core part and gradually moves and approaches to the ceramic properties at the surfaces of the FGM disk. In this task, thermal analyses are performed on two ventilated disk brake one of them is constructed of functionally graded composite material and the other is a homogeny disk brake which is constructed of steel alloy. In this study three-dimensional finite element model and ABAQUS software is used. Through comparison of temperature and displacement fields the benefits of using functionally graded material is investigated. It is shown that temperature variation in FGM disk is much lower than steel disks, it may be concluded that FGMs disk restrain the growth of thermal perturbation and delay the contact separation..

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During the design and development of truck cabins, the safety of the driver and the front seat passenger in an accident is an important task and should be considered. The cab must be designed in such a way that in an accident a sufficient survival space is guaranteed. The aim of this study is to investigate the behavior of Iran Khodro (IKCO) 2624 truck subjected to a complex crash test according to regulation ECE-R29. This regulation is a comprehensive European regulation consisting of three tests: 1-Front impact test (Test A), 2- Roof strength test (Test B), 3-Rear wall strength test (Test C). These tests do not consider the safety of the occupant directly however, a III-50th% dummy was used to assess the cab’s deformations relative to the driver survival space. A 3D finite element model of the cab and chassis was developed and subjected to tests by using LS-DYNA software. The results indicate that the cab complied with Test A and C successfully while it passed Test B marginally. Finally, two solutions are suggested and implemented to improve the cab’s response for Test B.

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In order to reduce both the weight of vehicles and the damage of occupants in a crash event simultaneously, it is necessary to perform a multi-objective optimization of the automotive energy absorbing components. In this paper, axial impact crushing behavior of the aluminum foam-filled thin-walled tubes are studied by the finite element method using commercial software ABAQUS. Comparison of the present simulation results with the results of the experiments reported in the previous works indicated the validity of the numerical analyses. A meta-model based on the feed-forward artificial neural networks are then obtained for modeling of both the absorbed energy (E) and the peak crushing force (Fmax) with respect to design variables using those data obtained from the finite element modeling. Using such obtained neural network models, a modified multi-objective GA is used for the Pareto-based optimization of the aluminum foam-filled thinwalled tubes considering three conflicting objectives such as energy absorption, weight of structure, and peak crushing force.

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In this study the performance and emissions characteristics of a heavy-duty, direct injection, Compression ignition (CI) engine which is specialized in agriculture, have been investigated experimentally. For this aim, the influence of injection timing, load, engine speed on power, brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC), peak pressure (PP), nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon dioxide (CO2), Carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbon (HC) and Soot emissions has been considered. The tests were performed at various injection timings, loads and speeds. It is used artificial neural network (ANN) for predicting and modeling the engine performance and emission. Multi-objective optimization with respect to engine emissions level and engine power was used in order to deter mine the optimum load, speed and injection timing. For this goal, a fast and elitist non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA II) was applied to obtain maximum engine power with minimum total exhaust emissions as a two objective functions.

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The suspension system of a vehicle is one of the most important parts which is involved in the process of vehicle designing. When a vehicle suspension system is designed, the evaluation of its performance against the road disturbances such as shocks and bumps are very important. The most commonly used systems consist of four hydraulic Jacks with mobility in vertical line with low speed and low exactitude. This paper offers a new mechanism for inspecting the suspension system of a vehicle using a parallel robot called Stewart. This robot is a special kind of parallel robots with capability of movements in different directions with high speed, accuracy and repeatability. In this paper the suspension system is evaluated on a quarter model of a simulated vehicle with control and guidance of Stewart robot using PID controller. The Stewart robot simulates the isolated and uneven bumps on a flat road in order to evaluate the given suspension system, and to investigate some criteria such as comforting of the passengers and remaining of the vehicle on the road. The results of the simulations show that the proposed method has a high accuracy, applicability and flexibility as well as simplicity, compared to currently used mechanisms.