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With the rapid development of autonomous driving technologies, the proportion of autonomous vehicles (AVs) will increase and influence road capacity. In this study, the simulation of mixed traffic flow was studied using an improved cellular automata model. Safety inter-vehicle spacing, the length of vehicles and reaction time are introduced into the cellular automata model. We delete the acceleration, deceleration and randomization rule for ideal conditions. Numerical simulations are utilized to analyze road capacity with different proportions of AVs. Road capacity is about 2200 pcu/h/lane for pure manual vehicle (MV) traffic flow and about 3600 pcu/h/lane for pure AV traffic flow. The capacity increases by 19.2% when there are 50% AVs in the traffic flow. And the capacity increases by around 63.6% due to the pure AV traffic flow.

In order to improve the performance of electro-hydraulic composite braking system of hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), a new type of plug-in HEV with dual motor was taken as the research object. The model of motor loss was built to achieve maximum motor efficiency, and the hydraulic braking system model, which can dynamically control pressure, was built. Based on the optimization of a motor’s continuously variable transmission (CVT) joint efficiency, the real-time optimal allocation strategy based on threshold method and cooperative control strategy of the electro-hydraulic composite braking system were brought out to recover most of the regenerative energy under the premise of ensuring safety. The model was built to verify the performance by AMESim-Simulink.

The requirement for low emissions and better vehicle performance has led to the demand for lightweight vehicle structures. Two new lightweight methods of design and optimization for the lower control arm were proposed in this research to improve the effectiveness of the traditional lightweight method. Prior to the two lightweight design and optimization methods, the static performance, including strength, stiffness and mode, and fatigue performance for the lower control arm were analyzed and they provided constraints for subsequent design and optimization. The first method of lightweight design and optimization was integrated application of topography optimization, size optimization, shape optimization and free shape optimization for the control arm. Topography optimization was first applied to find the optimal distribution form of reinforcement rib for the lower control arm. Size optimization was then applied in this study to optimize the plate thickness.

In recent years, the interior noise of automobile has been becoming a significant problem. In order to reduce the noise, porous materials have been widely applied in automobile manufacturing. In this study, the simulation method and optimal analysis are used to determine the optimum sound absorption of polyurethane foam. The experimental simulation is processed based on the Johnson-Allard model. In the model, the foam adheres to a hard wall. The incident wave is plane wave. The function of the model is to calculate the noise reduction coefficient of polyurethane foam with different thickness, density and porosity. The back propagation neural network coupled with genetic optimization technique is utilized to predict the optimum sound absorption. A developed back propagation neural network model is trained and tested by the simulation data.

A new design method is proposed for a semi-tracked air-cushion vehicle for soft terrain by using a flexible bind, which offers more flexibility in designing. This paper describes the design principle focusing on optimizing the total power consumption of the vehicle. The relationships of load distribution and power consumption are analyzed. The prototype experiments showed that the proposed design can meet the demand of tractive and transport efficiency with its optimal state of using minimum total power consumption and meanwhile maintaining ride comfort.