Automotive Engineering Commons^™

Reduced Exhaust Emissions Through Blending N-Butanol With Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel And Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene In Reactivity Controlled Compression Ignition Combustion, Remi Gaubert

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Increasing restrictions on the emitted exhaust emissions in diesel engines are becoming a more challenging task than in previous years. An electronic common rail fuel injection system and a port fuel injection (PFI) system were developed for an experimental engine to research dual fuel combustion. The experimental research was conducted at 1500 rpm and 4, 5, and 6 bar indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP). n-Butanol was port fuel injected at a 60% by mass fraction coupled with direct injection (DI) of three fuels, including ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD RCCI), a 50-50 wt-% blend of ULSD and butanol (ULSD-Bu RCCI), and …

Modeling And Analysis For Driveline Jerk Control, Prince Lakhani

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In modern-day automotive industry, automotive manufacturers pay keen attention to driver’s safety and comfort by ensuring good vehicle drivability, feel of acceleration, limiting jerk and noise. The vehicle driveline plays a critical role to meet these criteria. By using high-fidelity simulation tool such as AMESim®, it is now possible to accurately model the vehicle driveline to be tested for different scenarios. With Simulink®, one can develop an efficient torque-based control system to limit the driveline oscillations and the generated noise. So, a joint simulation is used which provides a platform to evaluate the estimators and control system while considering the …

Spray And Combustion Studies Of High Reactivity Gasoline In Comparison To Diesel Under Advanced Compression Ignition Engine Conditions, Meng Tang

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Gasoline compression ignition (GCI) technology has demonstrated great potentials in improving fuel economy and reducing engine-out NO_x and particulate matter emissions. Development and application of the GCI technology on multi-cylinder engines require both fundamental understandings of the gasoline spray combustion characteristics and accurate numerical tools. Due to the large differences in the thermo-physical and the chemical properties between gasoline and diesel range fuels, differences in the spray combustion characteristics between gasoline and diesel is expected. Reports on the gasoline spray combustion characteristics under conditions relevant to medium to heavy-duty engines are scarce and this dissertation aims to fill in …

Cold Start Analysis And Modeling Of A Direct-Injection Gasoline Engine, Yash Borghate

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In this thesis, two different works related to cold start of a direct-injection (DI) gasoline engine are shown. First, effect of split injection is studied on engine exhaust temperature and hydrocarbon emissions for cold start conditions. Instead of single injection, two injections are done, one injection during the intake stroke and one injection during the compression stroke. Split injection is known to reduce jet wall wetting, thus reducing the hydrocarbon emissions from engine itself. Further, split injection reduces engine cycle-by-cycle variability with respect to the single injection case. Correlations between start of injection for the injection in the intake stroke …

Advanced Multi-Speed Transmissions And Their Effect On Fuel Economy, Durability And Reliability, Sean Boyle

ASA Multidisciplinary Research Symposium

In a challenge to meet the high corporate average fuel economy (CAFE), manufacturers are using transmissions with 8, 9, and 10 speeds. This oral presentation addresses vehicle fuel economy impact with advanced multi-speed transmissions and also forecasts the reliability and durability when compared to a conventional 5 and 6-speed transmission.

Distributed Control System For Parallel-Connected Dc Boost Converters, Steven Goldsmith

Michigan Tech Patents

The disclosed invention is a distributed control system for operating a DC bus fed by disparate DC power sources that service a known or unknown load. The voltage sources vary in v-i characteristics and have time-varying, maximum supply capacities. Each source is connected to the bus via a boost converter, which may have different dynamic characteristics and power transfer capacities, but are controlled through PWM. The invention tracks the time-varying power sources and apportions their power contribution while maintaining the DC bus voltage within the specifications. A central digital controller solves the steady-state system for the optimal duty cycle settings …

Soft Target For Advanced Emergency Braking System Daimler Trucks, Kurt C. Ebert, Kolter Knapp, Esgar Pulido

Mechanical Engineering

This report provides an overview of the AEBS Soft Target project delivered to Daimler Trucks North Amer- ica as part of the 2016-2017 Mechanical Engineering Senior Design class at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. The purpose was to build a soft target to test Advanced Emergency Braking Systems, or AEBS, on Daimler 0 s large trucks. Though this design is for Daimler specifically, there may be other interested parties such as highway safety groups and rival auto manufacturers. Currently, there are no suitable alternative products that satisfy every requirement for Daimler to validate their systems. They require a …

Sae Small Vehicle Lifts, Augustus G. Holz, Nathan K. Harry, Tobias W. Shirts

Mechanical Engineering

The SAE (Society for Automotive Engineers) vehicle teams at Cal Poly need an easy way to access the undersides of their vehicles to facilitate maintenance and servicing. The purpose of this project was to provide a solution that could lift the vehicles effectively and safely from above so that the underside of the vehicles can be accessed, as well as elevating the vehicles to an ergonomic working height. Design specifications were determined based off each vehicle’s requirements in addition to what the team intends to do with their suspended vehicle. After several concept iterations, the team decided to purchase an …

Guided Target Control System Final Design Report, John Barry, Zachary Eagan, Ryan Mackintosh

Mechanical Engineering

Daimler Automotive, the parent company of Mercedes-benz requires improved methods for testing their Autonomous Emergency Braking Systems. To this end they have presented a series of four senior projects to California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. One of the Projects is to build a facsimile of a human crossing the street. The other three projects of which this is a part; are to produce an autonomous car facsimile. These projects are intended for use in testing new Autonomous Emergency Braking Systems and may serve as the basis for future senior projects.

Small-Scale Intelligent Vehicle Design Platform, Christopher Grant, Jay Miley, Evan Phillips

Mechanical Engineering

Intelligent Vehicle Design is a growing field with the potential to save many lives by actively minimizing the impacts of human error. Though there are many ways to research intelligent vehicle control, full-scale implementations are expensive and dangerous and computer simulations have extremely steep learning curves. Researchers and students need an accessible, adaptable, and robust development platform to rapidly create and test autonomous control algorithms. While small-scale platforms are often designed from the ground up for specific projects, this requires analysis, design, and manufacture. The goal of this project is to develop a small-scale intelligent vehicle that can be configured …

Electric Vehicle Drivetrain, Jimmy Andrew King, Kevin Kristopher Moore, Charissa Cadence Seid

Mechanical Engineering

This document serves to outline the design and development of Sharpell Technologies' ST5 electric vehicle drivetrain. Background research was conducted on various drivetrain components and testing methods, leading to the development of our drivetrain’s design requirements. Compiled in this report are the specifications of the components that will be integrated into our drivetrain design. All component calculations and specifications can be located in the appendices. An in-depth manufacturing plan features the modifications necessary to create several key components such as the shafts and housing. The assembly plan details a step-by-step process in which the components are arranged to ensure a …

Are Solar Panels A Viable Power Source For A Green Energy Vehicle?, Mason C. Adams

Senior Theses

A solar cell powered go-kart has been built and tested. The result shows using solar energy alone cannot meet the requirement of running a regular passenger car. This is due to the limited surface area of the passenger car. This thesis also discusses the operating principles of solar panels, the physics of P type and N type semiconductors, and the formation of the PN junction, as well as the solar current. Modifications of an existing go-kart are described in detail in this thesis. Suggestions for making green vehicles are discussed as well.

An Experimental Study On Drag Reduction Of Aftermarket Additions On An Suv, Christiana L. Katsoulos

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Over recent years, the awareness of climate change has become more prevalent worldwide and one major contributor to global warming has been the use of transportation. Vehicles contribute to global warming by releasing petroleum based emissions such as significant amounts of carbon dioxide and numerous other harmful environmental pollutants. SUVs contribute to the emissions problem more so than sedans, since they have lower gas mileage and need more gasoline regularly. The main functionality of sport utility vehicles, or SUVs, includes hauling or off-roading and fuel efficiency is not always the focus in the design process. However, aerodynamic enhancements could improve …

Supervisory Controls Strategy To Reduce Utility Factor Weighted Criteria Emissions For A Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle, Thomas Francis Gorgia Iii

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Criteria emission reduction techniques are being more sought out in the automotive industry due to current government regulation for light duty vehicles. Parallel-series plug in hybrid electric vehicles can have multiple strategies to balance emissions and fuel consumption. Common controls strategies in industry target fuel economy by using a large electric vehicle range, known as charge depletion, followed by maintaining a state of charge after a specific vehicle threshold, or charge sustaining. A charge preserve strategy works by running an engine at an optimal loading condition, the engine will burn the fuel more complete reducing criteria emissions. Charge preserve will …

Dynamic Understeer Control Using Active Rear Toe, Mark Oliver Dixon Kaufman

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This thesis was conducted to show the ability of Active Rear Toe to control the understeer characteristics of a vehicle. Active rear toe is the ability to control the angle of the rear wheels around the vertical axis, allowing the car’s turning radius to change. By changing this radius, the lateral acceleration can be controlled, therefore the understeer of the vehicle can be controlled. The controls scheme is a sliding mode control, specifically a hyperbolic tangent boundary layer and a type 1 zeno controller. The system shows effectiveness to control the understeer of the vehicle up until limit grip on …

Optimizing Jets For Wake Control Of Ground Vehicles, Domenic Barsotti, Sandra Boetcher

Publications

A system of wake control for a ground vehicle to help promote increased fuel efficiencies of the ground vehicle by modifying an air flow wake generated during the movement of the vehicle in a forward direction. The system includes at least one slot jet configured to be located along a rear profile portion of the ground vehicle. The at least one slot jet is configured to provide a continuous flow of air at a non-zero velocity when the ground vehicle is moving in a forward direction, the non-zero velocity being at least partially directed in a rearward direction with an …

Wire Neutralization System, Scott A. Bradley, Jason Wiitanen, Timothy B. Smigowski, John T. Niemeyer, Andrew Culkin

Michigan Tech Patents

A wire neutralizing system for use with a vehicle including a frame adapted to be hitched to a vehicle. At least one wheel supports the frame while a bottom of the wheel rolls over terrain having buried wires. The system also includes a blade movable between a stowed position in which the blade is above the bottom of the wheel and a deployed position in which the blade is below the bottom of the wheel, such that the blade plows through the terrain to disable buried wires when in the deployed position.

Built-In Bicycle Rack For Cars, Scott A. Hansberry

All Undergraduate Projects

Transporting a bicycle after riding somewhere and then needing to be pickup can be problematic. Bicycles will not fit in most vehicles without removing components. There is also the risk of damaging the inside of the vehicle. Expecting everyone to have a bike rack for their vehicle is unrealistic because the bike rack could be considered unappealing visually, take up to much space in the trunk, or limit the vehicle owner’s access to the trunk. The solution to this problem is a bike rack that mounts onto your car and then mounts your bike onto the rack. Most people don’t …

Analytical And Boundary Element Solutions Of Bulk Reacting Lined Ducts And Parallel-Baffle Silencers, Jundong Li

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Lined silencers of various configurations are used to attenuate the noise from building HVAC equipment, gas turbines, and other machinery. First-mode analytical solutions are presented for sound attenuation along rectangular lined ducts, parallel-baffle silencers, and circular lined ducts. The sound absorptive lining is treated using a bulk property model. The analytical solutions entail solving a nonlinear characteristic equation in the transverse direction after the rigid-wall boundary condition is applied. The solution is compared to the boundary element solution and a local impedance analytical solution for several test cases.

Effect Of Spark Advance And Fuel On Knocking Tendency Of Spark Ignited Engine, Abhay S. Joshi

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Knock, in spark ignition engine is the combustion caused by the autoignition of the fuel-air mixture. It is the phenomenon that limits engine performance and thermal efficiency. Knock also has an adverse effect on emissions and fuel economy. Engine designers target engines with maximum power and torque output without compromising on fuel economy. Engine downsizing is the method generally adopted. The main goal of engine downsizing is to achieve better fuel economy while increasing the power and torque output of the engine. Better fuel economy is achieved by reducing the displaced volume which in turn means a much higher brake …

Model-Based Control Of Hybrid Electric Powertrains Integrated With Low Temperature Combustion Engines, Ali Soloukmofrad

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Powertrain electrification including hybridizing advanced combustion engines is a viable cost-effective solution to improve fuel economy of vehicles. This will provide opportunity for narrow-range high-efficiency combustion regimes to be able to operate and consequently improve vehicle’s fuel conversion efficiency, compared to conventional hybrid electric vehicles (HEV)s. Low temperature combustion (LTC) engines offer the highest peak brake thermal efficiency reported in literature, but these engines have narrow operating range. In addition, LTC engines have ultra-low soot and nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions, compared to conventional compression ignition and spark ignition (SI) engines. This dissertation concentrates on integrating the LTC engines (i) in …

Development Of A High-Fidelity Model And Kalman Filter Based State Estimator For Simulation And Control Of Nox Reduction Performance Of A Scr Catalyst On A Dpf, Venkata Rajesh Chundru

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Reduction of emissions and improving the fuel consumption are two prime research areas in Diesel engine development. The present after-treatment systems being used for emissions control include diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC) for NO, HC and CO oxidation along with catalyzed particulate filters for PM (particulate matter) and selective catalytic reduction (SCR) for controlling NOx emissions. Recently an after-treatment system called SCR catalyst on a DPF capable of simultaneously reducing both NOx and PM emissions has been developed in order to reduce the overall size of the after-treatment system.

The goal of this proposed research is to create a state estimator …

Simulation Study On Effect Of Gas Charging And Egr In A Dual-Fuel Engine, Satyavenkata Naga Sai Sharath Gorthy

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Natural gas combined with diesel as micro pilot has the capabilities of achieving lower NOx and soot emissions. Optimization of the combustion process in engines with natural gas and diesel micro-pilot is essential to achieve higher efficiencies and loads. Gas charging (intake air boosting) and EGR are two technologies which when implemented in the natural gas-diesel engines, provide the opportunity to achieve higher efficiencies and loads and low emissions. Simulation study is one of the approaches to investigate the extent and effects of gas charging and EGR on the performance of the engine. With the rapid improvements over the past …

Design Of A Modified Stewart Platform Manipulator For Misalignment Correction, Adekunle Ayoko

Master of Technology Management Plan II Graduate Projects

This thesis work is about the design of a modified Stewart platform manipulator for misalignment correction. The common version of the Stewart platform uses six actuators. The traditional Stewart platform of this kind has a moving top plate and a fixed base plate. However, in this research, the modified design of the traditional Stewart platform is studied. It is designed to be an easy connect-disconnect platform that can wrap around different structures with different cross sections and symmetrically designed. It is able to adjust position easily by using four identical but independent linear actuators populated evenly in two parts fastened …

Active Management Assistant System For Embry-Riddle Ecocar 3 Hybrid Supervisory Control System, Matthew Nelson, Blair Cutting, Michael J. Aleardi

Student Works

The Embry-Riddle EcoCAR 3 team is developing a prototype hybrid Chevrolet Camaro utilizing a customized vehicle powertrain controller. This controller is serving to ensure system safety, vehicle operation, and consumer drivability while also incorporating advanced driving aids to achieve both the desired performance levels one expects from a Camaro as well as vehicle efficiency. This vehicle must reach the team set vehicle technical specifications of a 4.9 second 0 to 60 time while maintaining a 53 miles per gallon gasoline equivalence rating.

In order to reach the efficiency goal, the team is developing an Active Management Assistance System utilizing computer …

Application Of Floating Pedal Regenerative Braking For A Rear-Wheel-Drive Parallel-Series Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle With An Automatic Transmission, Dylan Lewis Lewton

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

As the world continues to move further away from our reliance on fossil fuels, hybrid vehicles are becoming ever more popular. Braking is a system on both hybrid and normal vehicles that involves a significant amount of power and energy. A hybrid can recapture some of that energy using regenerative braking. In this thesis, a method is devised to blend hydraulic and regenerative braking in the most effective manner. A MATLAB Simulink model was built to simulate a parallel-series plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. The model allows for the implementation of a regenerative brake controller that utilizes floating pedal regen, custom …

Traction And Launch Control For A Rear-Wheel-Drive Parallel-Series Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle, Adam Michael Szechy

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Hybrid vehicles are becoming the future of automobiles leading into the all-electric generation of vehicles. Electric vehicles come with a great increase in torque at lower RPM resulting in the issue of transferring this torque to the ground effectively. In this thesis, a method is presented for limiting wheel slip and targeting the ideal slip ratio for dry asphalt and low friction surfaces at every given time step. A launch control system is developed to further reduce wheel slip on initial acceleration from standstill furthering acceleration rates to sixty miles per hour. A MATLAB Simulink model was built of the …

Development, Characterization, & Implementation Of Phase-Change Material Cold Plates For Hybrid-Electric Vehicle Battery Systems, Kevin Cwiok

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Due to the regulations on internal combustion engine vehicles, there is a large demand of hybrid and electric vehicles with large battery packs as Energy Storage Systems (ESS) capable of long ranges and decreased emissions. These battery packs output large heat loads during charge-depletion mode and currently require active cooling to keep the batteries within operating conditions. The current systems relied onto achieve this are the air and liquid cooled thermal managements systems. A recent alternative approach to current cooling for ESS thermal management is the use of phase-change materials (PCMs). PCMs regulate the temperature of the ESS by leveraging …

Research On The Impact Of Geometric Parameter On The Cross-Section Precision In Rotary Draw Bending Of High-Strength Steel Tube With Rectangular Section, Hongliang Yang, Zhongwen Xing, Zhao Hao

The 8th International Conference on Physical and Numerical Simulation of Materials Processing

No abstract provided.

Fatigue Analysis Of The Welded Region In The Automotive Torsion Beam Rear Suspension System, Nan Zhan, Xiaochuan Zhang

The 8th International Conference on Physical and Numerical Simulation of Materials Processing

No abstract provided.