Automotive Science and Engineering

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In this paper, Front Engine Accessory Drive (FEAD) system of automotive engine is modeled with ADAMS software. The model is validated using engine test data. It is then used to investigate the effect of design parameters on the system performance such as belt vibration and loads on the idlers. Three alternative layouts were developed in order to improve the performance of original EEAD system. The validated model was used to study the effect of changes made to the layouts on the reduction of vibration and loads. Several system outputs indicated that for the modified layouts, large reductions in vibration and loads were achieved. It was concluded that one of proposed layouts was more appropriate and could be a useful substitution to the original layout. The developed model also proved useful for the design of engine FEAD systems and could be used for further developments.

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In this paper, the acoustic environment in a vehicle cabin under the influence of highfrequencies aerodynamic sources has been studied. Some panels on the windshield, the roof, the doors, the front pillars, and the floor of a vehicle simulated as input source of noise when the car is moving at high speed, i.e. 112 km/h. The status of vehicle cabin in each of these modes has been studied and compared to each other. There are some methods to simulate acoustic behavior of a vehicle cavity such as Finite Elements or Statistical Energy Analysis methods. A brief overview for Statistical Energy Analysis (SAE) is stated. In this study, the statistical energy method is used for determination of acoustic analysis. Auto SEA software is used to simulate and estimate the amount of sound pressure level. In addition, sound pressure formulation presented and used for comparison in vehicle cabin points and with experimental results for validation. Also, considering viscoelastic materials, a common form of material nonbinding panel has determined. The result shows that the roof is the most important panel in acoustic analysis under influence of aerodynamic sources. Accordingly, this panel has more effectiveness in optimization to control sound pressure level in a vehicle cabin. In addition, the amount of reduction in sound pressure level (SPL) in the cabin with viscoelastic material is presented as it could diminish the vibration of plates. In addition, the effect of using acoustic glasses is presented. Finally, the SPL effect of passenger position including front and rear is investigated and compared

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By new advancements in vehicle manufacturing vehicle quality evaluation and assurance has become a more critical issue. In present work, the vibration transfer path analysis and vibration path ranking of a car interior has been performed. The method is similar to classical multilevel TPA methods but has distinct differences. The method is named VIVS which stands for Vehicle Interior Vibration Simulation. Performance of some tests like chassis dyno test, virtual mass function test and body transfer function test are required in this approach. The accelerations on both sides of the engine mounts are measured on chassis dyno by which the virtual mass and body transfer functions are measured at engine mounts. Using the concept of multilevel TPA, the vibration share from each path is calculated. The overall vibration magnitude at target point is calculated by summing the shares. Path ranking can be done by having the share of each path from overall vibration magnitude. Using this method on a sample vehicle, some modification has been proposed to decrease the vibration at target point, and the side effect of the modifications on the powertrain dynamic behavior has been evaluated. The proposed method needs less analysis time than classical TPA methods and its ability in optimization of vibration magnitude at target points is proven.

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This paper presents a reduce roll vibration of the full vehicle model with passive suspension systems using vibration absorber to change the dynamic system matrix stat’s eigenvalue. Since using the controller system has been splurged and required to energy consuming, in this research the vehicle body roll vibration has been reduced and supplied vehicle stability using a vibration absorber for the passive suspension system. In this paper a new manner is introduced to reduce body roll angle and body's roll acceleration. The transverse instability in the independent suspension is a main problem, roll angle decreased transverse stability, that it has been reduced using vibration absorber. The optimal value of vibration absorber’s mass, spring and damping coefficient has been determined by using genetic algorithms (GA) to achieve developed roll angle behavior. The main purpose of this article is to reduce vehicle body roll angle that has been acquired using vibration absorber, this manner is better than other ways for roll reduction of vehicle body because it has done without any energy consuming.

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Nonlinear vibration of parabolic springs employed in suspension system of a freight car has been studied in this paper. First, dynamical behavior of the springs is investigated by using finite element method and the obtained results are then used in vibration analysis of a railway freight car. For this purpose, dynamics of a parabolic spring subjected to a cyclic excitation has been studied in the frequency range of 2 to 15 Hz. By utilizing an experimental setup, equivalent static and dynamic stiffness and damping of the spring have been obtained and compared with theoretical results. Different classes of rail irregularities are taken into account to excite the vehicle. Bond Graph method is employed to extract the equations of motion of the system and validity of the obtained equations is investigated. Finally, a parametric study is carried out and the influence of vehicle velocity and rail irregularity on vertical acceleration of the freight car has been examined.

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The natural frequencies and mode shapes of pneumatic tires are predicted using a geometrically accurate, three-dimensional finite element modeling. Tire rubber materials and cord layers are represented independently using “shell element” available in COSMOS. The effects of some physical parameters such as the inflation pressure tread pattern, thickness of belts and ply angles to the natural frequencies of tires are investigated. By imposing equivalent centrifugal forces, the effect of translational speed on vibrating behavior of the tire is also studied in this work. Comparisons of numerical and experimental results are given to show the validity of the proposed model.

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In the present paper, the modal analysis on a full finite element model of an off-road vehicle. This vehicle was modeled in the CATIA software and then meshed in the HYPERMESH software. The free vibration analysis was conducted by the ABAQUS software. By applying an external displacement, the forced vibration analysis was also performed. As a result, natural frequencies and shape modes were extracted to detect critical regions. Then, some improvements were suggested to have better vibration behavior of the vehicle.

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Excitations from the vehicle engine and the road surface cause vibrations in the exhaust system and the exhaust noise and vibrations are transmitted through the vehcile body and structure to the cabin, causing distractions and discomfort for the driver and passengers. In this article the method of average driving degrees of freedom displacement (ADDOFD) has been used to determine and optimize the location of suspended hanger points. Based on this approach, a model of car exhaust system is used using ANSYS software to optimize the hanger installation points for reducing vibration and to select the best positions for these points. The optimum hanger positions must have a relatively lower ADDOFD value compared to adjacent points. Then the static and dynamic analysis of the exhaust system is illustrated and finally on the basis of the above analyses, the position is chosen for the exhaust system hangers to reduce the transmission of noise and vibrations into the car cabin. Results indicate that optimization of the locations has resulted in a significant decrease in hanger loads, significantly reducing the vibrations transmitted to the vehicle cabin and increasing the life of the rubber hangers. This study has practical significance for reducing the vibration of automobile exhaust systems and the vehicle cabin.

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In the current paper, a biomechanical model of human body with unique structure is developed for evaluating the biodynamic responses, the vibration transmissibility and the transmitted accelerations to vertical vibration for the seated position with ignoring backrest support. In this regard, the 6-DoF Lumped-parameter model with six concentrated masses which are connected with linear springs and dampers is presented. Further, the full vehicle model is developed in ADAMS/CAR software in order to utilize the accelerations of seat under various roads excitation for different amount of vehicle speeds. Also, the vibration transmissibility and transmitted accelerations in vertical direction are measured for the different segments of human body including: Pelvis, Abdomen and Diaphragm, Chest, Torso, Back, Head and Neck. Finally, vibration transmissibility and transmitted accelerations due to the roughness of the roads surfaces are investigated for the different segments of human body in frequency domain from 0 to 50 Hz. As it is illustrated the maximum values for transmissibility for different body segments occurred for frequencies equivalent 20 to 30 Hz, it can be concluded that the human body is more sensitive to vibration with frequencies under 30 Hz.

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A combined hydraulic engine mount and buffer is proposed in this study for use in the mid-priced vehicle. In some vehicle design projects, an engine is selected to use in a new car design. To achieve the desired vibration conditions, the mount can be redesigned with exorbitant costs and long-term research. The idea of using a buffer in the combination of the conventional engine mount is to suggest a solution with affordable price which can improve mount vibration specifications. As a case study, the engine of Renault L90 (Dacia Logan), which name is K4M engine, is selected to use in the national B class automotive platform design. This automotive platform is designed at Automotive Engineering Research Center of Iran University of Science and Technology. The hydraulic engine mount is modeled in CATIA. Some tests are done to validate the simulation results. The conventional and buffer-equipped mount characteristics, which are determined by CATIA, is imported to Adams/Vibration software to evaluate the vibration behavior of the engine mounts. The results show that the use of buffer reduces the stiffness of mount, which should be 2 to 3 times lower than engine's frequency excitation. In some directions, the buffer-equipped mount has a better modal energy and isolation characteristics.

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Vertical dynamics modeling and simulation of a six-wheel unmanned military vehicle (MULE) studied in this paper. The Common Mobility Platform (CMP) chassis provided mobility, built around an advanced propulsion and articulated suspension system gave the vehicle ability to negotiate complex terrain, obstacles, and gaps that a dismounted squad would encounter. Aiming at modeling of vehicle vertical dynamics, basic and geometrical parameters defined and degrees-of-freedom specified on a compromise between accuracy and complexity of two models. Equations of motion provided on two linear and nonlinear 5-degree-of-freedom models using two different modeling methods. There is good agreement between time responses of two presented models. The main differences of two models observed in articulated suspension degrees-of-freedom while the vehicle subjected to high frequency maneuvers that cause severe oscillations on wheels and arms in comparison to vehicle body due to lower mass and inertia properties. The linear model can be used to design a controller and the nonlinear to predict vehicle motion more accurately. Sensitivity analysis of the influential parameters is also presented to specify effects of different parameters. Results of this study may be used to design articulated suspension and making next frequency analyses.

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In this paper, a new version of multi-objective differential evolution with dynamically adaptable mutation factor is used for Pareto optimization of a 5-degree of freedom vehicle vibration model excited by non-stationary random road profile. In this way, non-dominated sorting algorithm and crowding distance criterion have been combined to differential evolution with fuzzified mutation in order to achieve multi-objective meta-heuristic algorithm. To dynamically tune the mutation factor, two parameters, named, number of generation and population diversity are considered as inputs and, one parameter, named, the mutation factor as output of the fuzzy logic inference system. Conflicting objective functions that have been observed to be optimally designed simultaneously are, namely, vertical seat acceleration, vertical forward tire velocity, vertical rear tire velocity, relative displacement between sprung mass and forward tire and relative displacement between sprung mass and rear tire. Furthermore, different pairs of these objective functions have also been chosen for bi-objective optimization processes. The comparison of the obtained results with those in the literature unveils the superiority of the results of this work. It is displayed that the results of 5-objective optimization subsume those of bi-objective optimization and, consequently, this achievement can offer more optimal choices to designers.

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In this study, a multi-objective differential evolution with fuzzy inference-based dynamic adaptable mutation factor with hybrid usage of non-dominated sorting and crowding distance (MODE-FM) is utilized for Pareto optimization of a 5-degree of freedom nonlinear vehicle vibration model considering the five conflicting functions simultaneously, under different road inputs. The significant conflicting objective functions that have been observed here are, namely, vertical seat acceleration, vertical forward tire velocity, vertical rear tire velocity, relative displacement between sprung mass and forward tire and relative displacement between sprung mass and rear tire. Different road inputs are, namely, double-bump, stationary random road and non-stationary random road. It is exhibited that the optimum solutions of 5-objective optimization contain those of 2-objective optimization and, as a result, this important matter creates more options for optimal design of nonlinear vehicle vibration model.