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Automotive side door latches are considered safety-critical systems due to both federal and automotive OEM regulations. The paper presents a kinematical study, in terms of degrees of mobility, and the basic construction for an example mechanism utilized as an automotive side door latch. This system is represented and approximated with mechanisms with articulated bars, cams and gears. Mobility calculations for such type of mechanisms involve both the determination and the investigation of all involved kinematical elements and the nature of their mobile restraints (called kinematical couples). By applying the principles and the methods described in this paper similar investigations in terms of the degree of mobility for other side door latch design applications can be investigated.

For most of the Central and East European (CEE) countries, the evaluation of the environment factors (with the 4 characteristic seasons), of the usage conditions of the car fleet and of the specific legislative framework is still a confusing subject, because of lack of documentation and standardization in this field. Or, under the present conditions, when these countries also show a unanimous desire for the adhesion to the European pollution regulations, for the specialists in calibration of the Engine Management Systems (EMS) it is very important to know what are the peculiarities of these countries.

In papers are presented the structure and particularities of D.C. buck converter which can be used in the electric system of automotive. The equivalent circuits of buck converter deduced by energetically reasons and analysis of the power transfer through this converter is presented. To the analysis of the power transfer are done considering three sorts of load resistive, resistive inductive, and resistive capacitive load. Analyzed are the dependence of power transfer Vs switching frequency and duty factor. In the final part of the papers are presented graphics obtained by calculus.

Rollover of tractor/semi-trailer trucks is a serious concern by its human and financial consequences. No widely accepted method to prevent these harmful events has been found so far. A solution to this problem might be to detect and warn the operator on the center of gravity height of the heavy truck in on-road conditions. Estimating the center of gravity position of a vehicle while in motion may be a feasible approach, according to previous work. A more complicated problem is performing the estimation for a tractor/semi-trailer combination vehicle by measurements done on the tractor exclusively. The paper presents simple formulas which allow the above estimation for a minimal number of parameters and acquired data. Calculations done on the data describing the steady-state cornering of a real truck showed that an estimation with an error of about 20-22% of the center of gravity height by measurements done on the tractor vehicle exclusively seems possible.

The paper presents the theoretical and experimental research on radial vibrations of rotating passenger car tire at high speed of rolling, in contact with the road. A three-dimensional and a two-dimensional finite element tire models were created for modal analysis and for study of tire circumference deformed shapes at critical velocity of rolling. The experimental research involves the measurement of treadband accelerations of tire running on a drum at different speeds. The models make possible the prediction of the tire vibration behavior, even in projecting stage.