Automotive Engineering Commons^™

Transportation And Power Solutions For Africa: The Assessment And Optimization Of The Purdue Utility Platform, Jeremy Patrick Robison

Open Access Theses

The Purdue Utility Platform (PUP) is an off-road utility vehicle that was created to improve agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa by providing appropriate transportation and mobile power solutions. The vehicle design has matured to a level where it now requires more robust engineering tools to perform a rigorous assessment of its function. The assessment will be pursued in two areas: durability of the frame and the roll stability of the vehicle. To assess the durability of the frame, a data acquisition system was installed to collect strain gauge information during the vehicle’s operation. This data was then related to an …

Model Based Vehicle Simulation For Electrically Actuated Transmission Test Cells, Kenneth L. Gruel

Masters Theses

The Eaton Vehicle Group is responsible for the development of a large family of automotive products, including manual and automated manual transmissions for light, medium, and heavy duty vehicles. To further expand the transmission testing capabilities at Vehicle Group headquarters, the Vehicle Simulator system was developed and integrated into an existing motor-based test cell. System development time and cost were reduced by leveraging readily available vehicle models and real-time hardware. The Vehicle Simulator system allows a user to control the speed and torque settings of the test cell motors in manual mode, or switch the motors to vehicle emulation mode. …

Investigating The Relationship Between Latent Driving Patterns And Traffic Safety Using Smartphone-Based Mobile Sensor Data, Kenneth Wynne

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Crash frequency modelling has been used in the past as an attempt to quantify the expected number of crashes occurring on a certain segment of roadway given a set of variables and factors describing the roadway segment and the traffic along that segment. These models are referred to as the Safety Performance Functions (SPFs) in the Highway Safety Manual (HSM). In past studies, these SPFs have focused primarily on roadway geometric information along with limited traffic exposure data such as traffic volume. Alternate data sources for probe vehicle data are increasingly available and this research sought to exploit this new …

Cracking The Code: Driverless Cars Vs. Hackers | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Feb. 3, 2016 – Electrical and computer engineering researchers at USU are finding ways to defeat the safety and security measures in place to keep driverless cars rolling safely down the road.

And while it’s a complex exercise, the group says it hasn’t found a single layer of security they haven’t been able to defeat. It’s all part of a four-year study led by Assistant Professor Dr. Ryan Gerdes who was recently awarded a major grant from the National Science Foundation to study the security of autonomous vehicles and incorporate what he calls ‘adversarial thinking’ into the design process.

Live Versus Virtual: Cost Benefit Analysis For Applying Simulation Towards Army Aviator Flight Minimums, Dylan Morelle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Longbow Crew Trainer (LCT) is a cost effective, safe alternative to live training in the AH-64D/E Apache helicopter. Current Army doctrine and regulations have provisions for the limited use of simulator in lieu of aircraft hours toward semiannual minimum flight hour requirements. With the defense budget in decline, the Army must find innovative, cost effective methods to conduct realistic, relevant training to sustain proficiency in their warfighting capabilities. The LCT fully replicates the cockpit environment through training scenarios for requisite crew tasks and missions in a realistic, modular, and transportable solution. An attack helicopter crew can safely train in …

3d Infrastructure Condition Assessment For Rail Highway Applications, Teng Wang

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Highway roughness is a concern for both the motoring public and highway authorities. Roughness may even increase the risk of crashes. Rail-highway grade crossings are particularly problematic. Roughness may be due to deterioration or simply due to the way the crossing was built to accommodate grade change, local utilities, or rail elevation. With over 216,000 crossings in the US, maintenance is a vast undertaking. While methods are available to quantify highway roughness, no method exists to quantitatively assess the condition of rail crossings. Conventional inspection relies on a labor-intensive process of qualitative judgment. A quantifiable, objective and extensible procedure for …

Hydraulic Sprayer Boom Upgrade, Chad R. Omlin

All Undergraduate Projects

Title and Author: Agriculture sprayer hydraulic boom upgrade by Chad Omlin (engineering Technologies, Safety, and Construction)

Abstract: Today’s agriculture industry is all about being the most efficient with your time, land, employees, and machinery. One thing that has made farming more efficient has been the use of hydraulics. Having a sprayer unit with manual booms is not being efficient with your time and/or employees. To make the sprayer unit more efficient, hydraulic cylinders were added. Sketched solutions were analyzed using statics and mechanics of materials principles. Drawings were completed for the successful analysis solutions. Solid works software was used to …

The Impact Of Automation Reliability And Fatigue On Reliance, Ryan Wohleber

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this research is to inform the design of dynamic interfaces to optimize unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operator reliance on automation. A broad goal of the U.S. military is to improve the ratio of UAV operators to UAVs controlled. Accomplishing this goal requires the use of automation; however, the benefits of automation are jeopardized without appropriate operator reliance. To improve reliance on automation, this effort sought to accomplish several objectives organized into phases. The first phase aimed to validate metrics that could be used to gauge operator fatigue online, to understand how the reliability of automated systems influences …

Design And Development Of A High-Temperature High-Pressure Rolling Ball Viscometer/Densimeter And Evaluation Of Star Polymer-Solvent Mixtures, Matthew Stanton Newkirk

Theses and Dissertations

Modern automotive applications such as transmission clutch plates, combustion chambers, diesel fuel injector tips, and axle gears and friction plates operate at temperatures that can exceed 250°C and pressures of 40,000 psia. Industrial practice is to add homopolymers and copolymers to base oils to modify bulk fluid viscosity and frictional properties for these demanding applications. However, designing polymeric additives for lubricants and predicting their performance is limited by the lack of available high-temperature high-pressure (HTHP) viscosity and density data needed to test contemporary lubricity models. Thus, a major objective of this thesis is the design, development, and commissioning of a …

Integration And Testing Of An Advanced Conformable Cng Tank In A Full-Sized Light-Duty Pickup, Abayomi Famuyiwa

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Michigan Technological University is collaborating with Southwestern Energy and REL Inc. to develop and integrate a compressed natural gas (CNG) matrix tank that enables efficient packaging, increases range, and reduced cost for CNG vehicle applications. The vehicle being used in this project is a light-duty pickup truck to take advantage of the open space underneath the body and bed of the vehicle. With today’s cylindrical CNG tanks consuming cargo space, a solution is to develop a tank capable of being shaping to the underbody of the truck to free cargo space. University faculty and graduate students utilizes Finite Element Analysis …

Modeling, Simulation And Control Of Hybrid Electric Vehicle Drive While Minimizing Energy Input Requirements Using Optimized Gear Ratios, Sanjai Massey

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This project was conducted to analyze (model and simulate) and optimize an electric motor based drive system to propel a typical passenger vehicle in an urban driving environment. Although there are many HEV and EV type systems on the market today, this paper chose the Toyota Prius HEV system as a baseline using a brushless AC motor.

Although a vehicle can be driven many ways, a more standardized Urban Dynamometer Driving Schedule, UDDS, was chosen to simulate real driving conditions. This schedule is determined by the US Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, and is intended to represent the city driving conditions …

An Experimental Investigation Of The Effect Of Temperature And Space Velocity On The Performance Of A Cu-Zeolite Flow-Through Scr And A Scr Catalyst On A Dpf With And Without Pm Loading, Vaibhav Kadam

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Abstract The heavy-duty diesel (HDD) engines use the diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC), catalyzed particulate filter (CPF) and urea injection based selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems in sequential combination, to meet the US EPA 2010 PM and NOₓ emission standards. The SCR along with a NH₃ slip control catalyst (AMOX) offer NOₓ reduction >90 % with NH₃ slipHowever, there is a strong desire to further improve the NOₓ reduction performance of such systems, to meet the California Optional Low NOₓ Standard implemented since 2015. Integrating SCR functionality into a diesel particulate filter (DPF), by coating the SCR catalyst on the DPF, …

Restraint System Design And Evaluation For Military Specific Applications, Sebastian Karwaczynski

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This research focuses on designing an optimal restraint system for usage in a military vehicle applications. The designed restraint system must accommodate a wide range of DHM’s and ATD’s with and without PPE such as: helmet, boots, and body armor. The evaluation of the restraint systems were conducted in a simulated vehicle environment, which was utilized to downselect the ideal restraint system for this program.

In December of 2011 the OCP TECD program was formulated to increase occupant protection. To do this, 3D computer models were created to accommodate the entire Soldier population in the Army. These models included the …

Design Of Real-Time Combustion Feedback System And Experimental Study Of An Rcci Engine For Control, Jayant Kumar Arora

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Premixed compression ignition (PCI) technologies offer high efficiency and low emissions but are usually confined by limited operation range as well as high pressure rise and heat release rate. In this work, a more recently developed PCI mode is explored where in-cylinder blending of two fuels with different auto-ignition characteristics (diesel and gasoline) is utilized to create reactivity stratification such that heat release rate and combustion timing can be controlled. This mode has been defined as Reactivity Controlled Compression Ignition (RCCI).

As part of this thesis, the main aim is to study various parameters that can be used to control …

An Experimental Investigation Into The Effect Of Particulate Matter On Nox Reduction In A Scr Catalyst On A Dpf, Saksham Gupta

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The study of NO_x reduction across the SCRF^® is presented in this report to understand the inlet and outlet NO, NO₂, NH₃ species from the SCRF^®. The SCRF^® is a prototype SCR catalyst on a Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) that reduces NOx and PM at the downstream location. The SCRF^® reduces the packaging volume of the aftertreatment components in order to reduce the cost, volume and weight of the aftertreatment system. A total of 12 experiments were performed on a Cummins ISB 2013 280 hp engine and the aftertreatment system. The …

Design, Fabrication And Analysis Of An Auxiliary Power Unit On A Heavy-Duty Truck To Power The Hvac Systems Of The Truck During Driver Off-Duty Conditions, Rohan Milind Kalurkar

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Currently, one of the biggest challenges the world is facing is energy insufficiency. One of the contributors to energy consumption in United States are the idling semi-trailer trucks. In May 2001, President Bush issued The National Energy Policy in which he directed The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Transportation (DOT) to reduce the idling of trucks. This was done in order to reduce energy consumption by lowering fuel consumption and emissions coming out of semi-trailer trucks in the United States of America.

This project deals with the efforts of installing an Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) as a device …

Design And Fabrication Of A Suspension Rig, Abhijith Geo Philip

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Owing to its placement under the vehicle body, the suspension system is one of the parts of the vehicle which are difficult to comprehend completely, albeit being a vital component. For demonstrating the working of a suspension system, a physical model in which one can actually see the movement of all the components would be a great tool. A Mustang II independent front suspension system was purchased from Heidts Engineering Performance and a rig that can emulate some of the real world situations of vehicle suspension action was designed and fabricated. All the components are accessible and conditions like bounce, …

A Biomimetic, Energy-Harvesting, Obstacle-Avoiding, Path-Planning Algorithm For Uavs, Snorri Gudmundsson

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This dissertation presents two new approaches to energy harvesting for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). One method is based on the Potential Flow Method (PFM); the other method seeds a wind-field map based on updraft peak analysis and then applies a variant of the Bellman-Ford algorithm to find the minimum-cost path. Both methods are enhanced by taking into account the performance characteristics of the aircraft using advanced performance theory. The combined approach yields five possible trajectories from which the one with the minimum energy cost is selected. The dissertation concludes by using the developed theory and modeling tools to simulate the …

Experimental Study, Modelling And Controller Design For An Rcci Engine, Naga Nithin Teja Kondipati

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Low Temperature Combustion (LTC) has got widespread attention over the past two decades in the field of Automotive Research and Development due to it’s potential for achieving higher efficiencies with near-zero engine out NOx and soot emissions. Among all the LTC strategies Reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI) has shown the most promising results due to it’s precise control over combustion phasing and heat release rate. However, RCCI being a dual-fuel stratified combustion, precise control over the injection timing of direct injected fuel and in-cylinder fuel reactivity of the mixture needs to be controlled effectively in order to achieve gross indicated …

Competition Vehicle Based Intake Manifold Design, Joshua N. Matiash

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

A competitive vehicle in Formula SAE needs to be easy for unskilled drivers to extract the maximum performance from. This requires a predictable and manageable torque curve. This report details the development of an intake manifold for a Formula SAE car from a vehicle-based approach to produce this manageable and predictable torque. The current vehicle was instrumented and driven on a representative track to determine the usage of available torque. Based on these findings an ideal torque curve was chosen that favored increased torque at upper engine speed ranges and decreased torque at lower engine speed ranges. A 1-D engine …