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There is a need to enable the evaluation of ascending vehicle technologies such as the electrified powertrain and the driving assistance systems with low cost and low risk resources. In a context of ever stringent requirements for developing new vehicles, system and production complexities lead to high capital expenses required to ensure serial production will be implemented. One of such complexities is the interdependency between power delivery and dynamic control, which creates trade-offs in the treatment of performance and safety parameters. Virtual models still provide intermediate-level resources, and test platforms have limitations to verifying dynamic parameters; against this situation, scale vehicle platforms provide a low cost and low risk alternative for the implementation of innovative technologies based on integrated systems for improving vehicle performance and safety.

Vehicle dynamics simulation is an essential stage of product development. It is a low cost alternative to the expensive and time-consuming experimental tests performed during the design phase. The ability to accurately predict the dynamics of vehicles can, for instance, provide useful information about their stability characteristics. Yaw instability, in particular, can cause divergent yaw behavior in conventional passenger cars and jackknife in articulated vehicles, like tractor-semitrailer combinations. These instabilities are associated with safety issues since their occurrence can cause accidents with fatal losses, injuries and property damage. Therefore, the development of vehicle models and simulation environments is necessary. This paper presents the open source package Vehicle Dynamics - Lateral.

As an alternative for conventional fossil fuel powered vehicles, renewable fuel sources such as ethanol represent a proven technology and experienced a continuous growth in the last decade in the Brazilian market [1]. Hybrid vehicles are slowly arriving in Brazil as they still suffer from the increased cost of the hybrid powertrain coupled to high importation taxes. In this paper, simulations are conducted in order to analyze the operation of a hybrid electric vehicle using a series-parallel topology. A feature of this drivetrain configuration is the use of a planetary gear set as torque-split device between the traction components which can be applicable for an ethanol engine. The system architecture of the referenced vehicle is first described with a comparison against the main powertrain topologies adopted for hybrid vehicles. The vehicle model is presented and the different modes of operation across the torque split device are analyzed.

The clutch system works basically as an interface between the engine and the vehicle. The engine provides power and torque in a given revolution while the vehicle launches. The slip time is a critical moment for the clutch during vehicle launch. So, lots of studies have been done to predict the total slip time and related amount of energy during clutch engagement. Considerations about this energy are highly important in clutch capacity analysis, and the studies available evaluate several aspects that take place during the slipping phase, where simple or complex models represent all dynamics involved in the related systems.