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This paper describes the development and testing of a Dynamic Vibration Absorber to reduce frame beaming vibration in a highway tractor. Frame beaming occurs when the first vertical bending mode of the frame is excited by road or wheel-end inputs. It is primarily a problem for driver comfort. Up until now, few options were available to resolve this problem. The paper will review the phenomenon, design factors affecting a vehicle's sensitivity to frame beaming, and the principles of Dynamic Vibration Absorbers (AKA Tuned Mass Dampers). Finally, the paper will describe simulation and testing that led to the development of an effective vibration absorber as a field fix.

In this paper solution for low-cost automation of aircraft assembly is presented. The concept of this development is closely related to “Lean Automation”, which in this case concerns the use of modern standard equipment such as standard robots, PC-computers and a newly developed spatial sensor system for precision measurements of positions. The robot is used to perform reconfiguration of tooling modules that are possible to be configured/reconfigured in six degrees of freedom. A prototype developed as the result of an EU-project called ADFAST* has been evaluated at Linköping University in Sweden. Technical functionality is reported where the robot manages to configure the flexible tooling modules to a total error bellow 50 μm. This paper presents the results on the portion of the project addressing robot, metrology system and tooling.

This paper analyzes fuel economy benefits of direct hydrogen and gasoline reformer fuel cell vehicles, with special focus on cold-start impacts on these fuel cell based vehicles. Comparing several existing influential studies reveals that the most probable estimates from these studies differ greatly on the implied benefits of both types of fuel cell vehicles at the tank-to-wheel level (vehicle-powertrain efficiency and/or specific power), leading to great uncertainties in estimating well-to-wheel fuel energy and/or greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction potentials. This paper first addresses methodological issues to influence the outcome of these analyses. With one exception, we find that these studies consistently ignore cold-start and warm-up issues, which play important roles in determining both energy penalties and start-up time of fuel cell vehicles. To better understand cold-start and warm-up behavior, this paper examines approaches and results based on two available U.S.

In June of 2002, 15 universities participated in the third year of FutureTruck, an advanced vehicle competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and Ford Motor Company. Using advanced technologies, teams strived to improve vehicle energy efficiency by at least 25%, reduce tailpipe emissions to ULEV levels, and lower greenhouse gas impact of a 2002 Ford Explorer. The competition vehicles were tested for dynamic performance and emissions and were judged in static events to evaluate the design and features of the vehicle. The dynamic events include braking, acceleration, handling, and fuel economy, while the dynamometer testing provided data for both the emissions event and the greenhouse gas event. The vehicles were scored for their performance in each event relative to each other; those scores were summed to determine the winner of the competition. The competition structure included different available fuels and encouraged the use of hybrid electric drivetrains.

Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), working with the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV), maintains hybrid vehicle simulation software: the PNGV System Analysis Toolkit (PSAT). The importance of component models and the complexity involved in setting up optimized control strategies require validation of the models and controls developed in PSAT. Using ANL's Advanced Powertrain Test Facilities (APTF), more than 50 tests on the Honda Insight were used to validate the PSAT drivetrain configuration. Extensive instrumentation, including the half-shaft torque sensor, provides the data needed for through comparison of model results and test data. In this paper, we will first describe the process and the type of test used to validate the models. Then we will explain the tuning of the simulated vehicle control strategy, based on the analysis of the differences between test and simulation.

In recent years, vehicle manufacturers have made great progress in developing and demonstrating commercially available and prototyped hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). These vehicles include commercially available gasoline hybrid cars (Toyota Prius and Honda Insight) and Partnership for the Next Generation Vehicle (PNGV) diesel hybrid prototypes (Ford Prodigy, GM Precept, and DaimlerChrysler ESX3). In this paper, we discuss tested and claimed fuel benefits and performance of these commercial and prototyped HEVs relative to conventional vehicles (CVs) that are otherwise similar to these HEVs, except for hybridization. We also describe a reverse-engineering approach to de-hybridize or “conventionalize” these five existing commercial and prototyped HEVs. Because these commercial and prototyped HEVs represent a variety of technological choices, configurations, and development stages, this analysis gives us in-depth knowledge about how each of these vehicles achieves high efficiency.

Statistical analyses of the acceleration capability of gasoline vehicles have focused on zero to 97 km/h acceleration rates and have concluded that peak power per kilogram is an appropriate single surrogate for acceleration capability. In this paper, statistical methods are used with data for 107 vehicles tested and reported by Consumers Union for 1986-1988 model years to estimate the determinants of contemporary gasoline vehicle acceleration capability under various conditions, adding new variables to the statistical tests reported by others. Like previous studies, this analysis determined that power and weight provide the most information about acceleration capability. Using a model formulation unlike other studies, this study found that engine displacement also provides statistically significant improvements in explanation of 0-48, 0-97, and 48-97 km/h acceleration times.

Statistical methods are used with 107 vehicles whose fuel economy was presented and reported for five test types in a single publication by Consumers Union (CU) for 1986-1988 vehicles. Standard loglinear statistical formulations (i.e., multiplicative models of interactions) are used with data from this and supplementary sources to develop coefficients estimating the percent fuel economy gain per percent change in engine/vehicle design characteristic. The coefficients are developed for the five different test conditions evaluated by CU and are compared with each other on the basis of attributes of the tests. The insights of engineering models are used to develop expectations regarding the shift in size of coefficients as driving cycles change.