Automotive Engineering Commons^™

Modeling Chevy Volt Gen Ii Supervisory Controller In Charge Sustaining Operation, Saurabh Bhasme

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This report is focused on the development of Chevy Volt Gen II powertrain supervisory controller modeling for charge sustaining operation of the vehicle. The modeling process incorporated vehicle parameters and maps provided. The overall powertrain model along with the supervisory controller is developed in MAT- LAB/SIMULINK programming platform. The powertrain model includes all components which are the IC engine, two electric motors & associated TPIM, Battery, transmission auxiliary pump and spin-losses. The supervisory controller includes the vehicle drive mode selection model, the torque blending logic for charge sustaining along with friction brake modeling. The model has been developed to perform …

Experimental And Numerical Simulation Of Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar Test On Borosilicate Glass, Mayank K. Bagaria

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This study is an extension to the design of ceramic materials component exposed to bullet impact. Owing to the brittle nature of ceramics upon bullet impact, shattered pieces behave as pellets flying with different velocities and directions, damaging surrounding components. Testing to study the behavior of ceramics under ballistic impact can be cumbersome and expensive. Modeling the set-up through Finite Element Analysis (FEA) makes it economical and easy to optimize. However, appropriately incorporating the material in modeling makes laboratory testing essential. Previous efforts have concentrated on simulating crack pattern developed during 0.22 caliber pellet impact on Borosilicate glass. A major …

Automotive Driveline Backlash State And Size Estimator Design For Anti-Jerk Control, Kaushal Kumar Darokar

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Vehicle drivability is an important factor which more and more customers have started assessing before buying a vehicle. Customers carry out this assessment based on both vehicle reviews/ratings and based on the test drives. One of common maneuver which a customers perform during the test drive is sudden accelerator pedal tip-in or tip-out to accelerate or coast the vehicle. Clunk and shuffle are the phenomena that usually occur during this scenario causing driver discomfort. The clunk and shuffle are caused by the backlash and compliance physical properties of the driveline. Consequently, control strategy needs to be developed which can provide …

Characterization Of Hydraulic Interactions Between Torque Converter And Transmission During Transient Events, Mark Woodland

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

A torque converter was instrumented with 29 pressure transducers to measure the torus, clutch plate, and torque converter cavities using telemetry to transfer the data. The torque converter was placed in a six-speed front wheel drive transmission and a test cell was built to drive and load the transmission to mimic in-vehicle performance.

Steady state tests were completed to establish a baseline for pressure performance of the torque converter. The transient events tested include back drive and gear shifting. Back drive showed how the pressure fluctuates across the speed ratios above 1 as well as identifying the stator speed. Gear …

Effects Of Variable Valve Actuation On Exhaust Enthalpy And Engine Out Emissions, Zakarie Parker

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Vehicle emissions standards are becoming increasingly more strict as time progresses. Once all of the emissions devices are in their operational stage, these standards can be met with reasonable effort in powertrain design and calibration. However, the core of this system, the three-way catalyst, is non-operational until it has reached 200-350⁰C. Because of this, cold-start catalyst heating is extremely important in new vehicles. The objective of this project was to improve catalyst heating without increasing engine-out emissions. It was decided that the sensible heat portion of the exhaust enthalpy would be the best metric to judge differences between the different …

An Experimental Study Of A Passive Nox Adsorber (Pna) For The Reduction Of Cold Start Diesel Emissions, Conor Berndt

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Medium and heavy-duty diesel engines contribute nearly a third of all NOx emissions nationwide. Further reduction of NOx emissions from medium and heavy-duty diesel engines is needed in order to meet National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ambient particulate matter and ozone. Current diesel engine aftertreatment systems are very efficient at reducing NOx emissions at exhaust temperatures above 200 °C, however at exhaust temperatures below 200 °C there are significant NOx emissions at the tailpipe. Therefore, a reduction of diesel engine cold start and low speed/load operation emissions, where exhaust temperatures are below 200 °C, is needed. Utilizing a …

Energy Intensity As An Ecological Factor In The Selection Of The Manufacturing Process, Artur Soroczyński, Roman Haratym, Krzystof Rechowicz

VMASC Publications

The article presents the analysis of the implementation of selected elements of car transport in the aspect of ecology. The basic issue that affects the protection of the environment (ecology) is the value of energy intensity in the manufacture of products. The elements made in the production process of plastic mouldings were compared. The amount of energy in kJ needed to produce 1 kg of a given product was estimated. Next, the dependencies between the value of computational energy intensity and the emission of gases affecting the environment of CO₂, SO₂, NO_x were presented. As …

Leveraging Contracting Strategies With Private Shipyards For Increasing Naval Fleet Operational Availability, Kaitlynn M. Castelle, Joseph M. Bradley, Sanjeev Gupta

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

A major rethink of NAVSEA’s shipyard contracting strategy is required to support the critical need of improving our naval fleet availability. Operational Fleet material availability is reduced when various parts of the “NAVSEA production system” operate at cross-purposes. By increasing alignment between major players (i.e., NAVSEA and the private shipyards), major improvements in delivery performance, cost, and even throughput can be realized. Developing strategies and specific actions to do so is a rich field given the current state of the system. We take an analytical as well as evidence-based approach to propose strategies that can be successful given the peculiar …

Anti-Roll Bar For Sae Baja Vehicle, Jennifer Bulgrin, Zachary A. Gnabah, Scott P. Toth

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This report explores the need to improve the Zips Baja vehicle handling performance. This will be achieved by designing an anti-roll bar system for the rear suspension of the Zips Baja vehicle to decrease the turning radius of the vehicle. The project develops specific goals to achieve increased performance, goes through the engineering design cycle to create a prototype, evaluate its effectiveness, optimize the design through several iterations, and design a final solution. After sub-functions have been determined, conceptual ideas for completing all sub-functions were evaluated and a conceptual design was selected to proceed into the embodiment design phase. Once …

Carbon Fiber Racing Wheel, Megan Sanok, Melissa Furdak, Sydney Schipani

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Industry today thrives off of competition; everybody wants their product to be the best. Across almost every field of manufacturing and design, there is a pattern of factors that companies strive for when producing their specialized products. The most effective companies can create a commodity that is relatively inexpensive, easy to manufacture, and has the ability to meet high standards. As engineers, it is ingrained in us that there is always room for improvement, and that we have been given the tools to make it happen.

When evaluating what needed to be improved in our daily lives, the SAE Zips …

Sae Baja Custom Caliper And Upright Design, Katelynn R. Kise

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The Zips Baja Off-Road Racing team had a successful 2018 season however some aspects of the car needed to be updated and improved for the 2019 season. This reports captures the design cycle performed to improve the cost, integration, and reliability of the front braking caliper and upright.

Unsupervised Feature Learning For Point Cloud By Contrasting And Clustering With Graph Convolutional Neural Network, Ling Zhang

Dissertations and Theses

Recently, deep graph neural networks (GNNs) have attracted significant attention for point cloud understanding tasks, including classification, segmentation, and detection. However, the training of such deep networks still requires a large amount of annotated data, which is both expensive and time-consuming. To alleviate the cost of collecting and annotating large-scale point cloud datasets, we propose an unsupervised learning approach to learn features from unlabeled point cloud ”3D object” dataset by using part contrasting and object clustering with GNNs. In the contrast learning step, all the samples in the 3D object dataset are cut into two parts and put into a …

Modeling Of Optimized Neuro-Fuzzy Logic Based Active Vibration Control Method For Automotive Suspension, Mohammad Adom Safiullah

Masters Theses

In this thesis, an active vibration control system was developed. The control system was developed and tested using a quarter car model of an adaptive suspension system. For active vibration control, an actuator was implemented in addition to the commonly used passive spring damper system. Due to nature of unpredictability of force required two different fuzzy inference system (FIS) were developed for the actuator. First a sequential fuzzy set was built, that resulted lower vertical displacement compared to basic damper spring model, but system had limited effect with disturbances of higher magnitude and continuous vibrations (rough road). To improve the …

Comparison Of Drag Area Estimation Using Natural Coast Down And Constant Speed Test Methods, Cem Baki Mr

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Currently in US, more than 26 percent of the total GHG emissions comes from transportation and mostly from heavy duty vehicles. Similarly, the European Council stated that 25 percent of the emissions comes from heavy duty transportation and they expect it to be further increased in the future. However, with the new coming regulations US EPA and European Council aiming to reduce the emissions by 80 percent in US and 60 percent in EU. In order to keep track and control the emissions, both authorities published new regulations and testing methods for certifying the new vehicles.

Aerodynamic testing is one …

Intelligent Transportation Systems, Hybrid Electric Vehicles, Powertrain Control, Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control, Model Predictive Control, Hadi Kazemi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Information obtainable from Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) provides the possibility of improving the safety and efficiency of vehicles at different levels. In particular, such information has the potential to be utilized for prediction of driving conditions and traffic flow, which allows us to improve the performance of the control systems in different vehicular applications, such as Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs) powertrain control and Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC). In the first part of this work, we study the design of an MPC controller for a Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) system, which is an automated application that provides the drivers …

Investigation And Development Of Exhaust Flow Rate Estimation Methodologies For Heavy-Duty Vehicles, Chakradhar Reddy Vardhireddy

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Exhaust gas flow rate from a vehicle tailpipe has a great influence on emission mass rate calculations, as the emission fractions of individual gases in the exhaust are calculated by using the measured exhaust flow rate. The development of high-end sensor technologies and emission pollutant measurement instruments, which can give instantaneous values of volume concentration of pollutants flowing out of the engine are gaining importance because of their ease of operation. The volume concentrations measured can then be used with the instantaneous exhaust flow rate values to obtain mass flow rates of pollutants.

With the recent promulgation of real world …

The Effect Of Communication And Vehicle Properties On The Search Performance Of A Swarm Of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Jenna E. Newcomb, Andrew Ning

Faculty Publications

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm allows for a more time-efficient method of searching a specified area than a single UAV or piloted plane. There are a variety of factors that affect how well an area is surveyed. We specifically analyzed the effect both vehicle properties and communication had on the swarm search performance. We used non-dimensionalization to examine the effect vehicle properties had on search performance so the results can be applied to any domain size with any number and type of vehicle. We found that even if vehicles could only sense 10% of the grid area at any …

Benchmarking And Evaluating The Efficiency Of Mass Transit Systems Based On Best Practice Using Data Envelopment Analysis, Jacqueline Nayame, Maoloud Dabab, Timothy Anderson

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Public transit systems in the USA have been faced with mounting pressure to decrease their operating costs while at the same time expected to increase ridership and meeting multiple societal needs. The primary objective of this study is to measure the efficiencies of mass transit agencies based on best practice in the US, identify the influencing factors leading to their efficiencies, and how these strategies and policies can be used improve inefficiency in transit agencies. Using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method, the study analyzed the mass performance of 334 transit agencies across the US using data from the national transit …

การตรวจสอบรอยแตกร้าวบนพื้นผิวคอนกรีตในรูปแบบมัลติสเกลโดยการประมวลผลภาพ, ปิยวัฒน์ ตันติ์ศรีสกุล

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

รอยร้าวบนพื้นผิวคอนกรีตอาจจะมีลักษณะความแตกต่างตามสาเหตุที่เกิดขึ้น หากได้มีการตรวจสอบในระดับที่ใกล้ชิดกับพื้นผิวรอยร้าว แล้วสามารถนำมาวิเคราะห์แยกลักษณะความแตกต่างของรอยร้าวตามสาเหตุที่เกิดขึ้นได้ ก็จะได้รูปแบบที่จะช่วยลดขั้นตอนการตรวจสอบและเพิ่มขีดความสามารถของบุคลากรในการตรวจสอบรอยร้าวได้ งานวิจัยนี้เป็นกรณีศึกษา โดยตั้งสมมติฐานลักษณะความแตกต่างของรอยร้าวตามสาเหตุที่ได้กำหนด จากนั้นทำการหล่อและทดสอบตัวอย่างคอนกรีตที่ได้กำหนดไว้ คือ การทดสอบแรงดัด การทดสอบแรงเฉือนและการทดสอบแรงดึง จากนั้นนำ Chula Smart Lens ที่มีกำลังขยาย 20, 40 และ 50 เท่า มาใช้งานร่วมกับโทรศัพท์มือถือ Iphone7 ในการถ่ายรูปรอยร้าวที่เกิดขึ้นบนพื้นผิวคอนกรีตและนำภาพถ่ายไปวิเคราะห์โดยการสร้างแบบจำลองและกระบวนการประมวลผลภาพ เพื่อหาลักษณะความแตกต่างและตรวจวัดรอยร้าวที่เกิดขึ้นที่พื้นผิวบนคอนกรีต ผลจากงานวิจัยลักษณะรอยร้าวบนพื้นผิวคอนกรีตจากการสร้างแบบจำลองและการประมวลผลภาพ พบว่ามีบางส่วนเป็นไปตามสมมติฐาน แต่มีบางส่วนที่ไม่เป็นไปตามสมมติฐาน ดังนั้น สมมติฐานลักษณะความแตกต่างของรอยร้าวที่ได้ตั้งไว้ตามสาเหตุที่ได้กำหนดจึงไม่เป็นจริง ส่วนการตรวจวัดรอยร้าวคอนกรีตนั้นสามารถหาค่าความกว้าง ความยาวและพื้นที่ของรอยร้าวที่เกิดขึ้นได้การการประมวลผลภาพ เมื่อรู้ค่าดังกล่าวแล้วสามารถที่จะนำไปหาวิธีในการซ่อมแซมบำรุงรักษาต่อไป

Combined Trajectory, Propulsion, And Battery Mass Optimization For Solar-Regenerative High-Altitude Long Endurance Unmanned Aircraft, Nathaniel S. Gates, Kevin R. Moore, Andrew Ning, John D. Hedengren

Faculty Publications

Combined optimization of propulsion system design, flight trajectory planning and battery mass optimization for solar-regenerative high-altitude long endurance (SRHALE) aircraft through a sequential iterative approach yields an increase of 20.2% in the end-of-day energy available on the winter solstice at 35 deg N latitude, resulting in an increase in flight time of 2.36 hours. The optimized flight path is obtained by using nonlinear model predictive control to solve flight and energy system dynamics over a 24 hour period with a 15 second time resolution. The optimization objective is to maximize the total energy in the system while flying a station-keeping …

Reduction Of Nox Emissions In A Single Cylinder Diesel Engine Using Sncr With In-Cylinder Injection Of Aqueous Urea, Anthony Timpanaro

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The subject of this study is the effect of in-cylinder selective non-catalytic reduction (SNCR) of NO_x emissions in diesel exhaust gas by means of direct injection of aqueous urea ((NH₂)₂CO) into the combustion chamber. A single cylinder diesel test engine was modified to accept an electronically controlled secondary common rail injection system to deliver the aqueous urea directly into the cylinder during engine operation.

Direct in-cylinder injection was chosen in order to ensure precise delivery of the reducing agent without the risk of any premature reactions taking place. Unlike direct in-cylinder injection of neat water, …

Roadnet: Robust Adaptive Network For Information Diffusion In Vanet, Priyashraba Misra

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The automotive industry has changed more in the last one decade than ever before. Rapid advancements in autonomous driving have opened up opportunities for CAVs (Connected and Automated Vehicles). Vehicles today rely on a sensor-suite to map the surrounding and use that information for safety and navigation. The sensor's view is limited to its line of sight and this drawback can be tapered off by using Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I), generally referred to as Vehicle to Everything (V2X) communication. In this thesis, we specifically focus on utilizing V2V communication using on-board Dedicated Short Range Communication …

Effect Of Sensor Errors On Autonomous Steering Control And Application Of Sensor Fusion For Robust Navigation, Shuvodeep Bhattacharjya

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Autonomous steering control is one the most important features in autonomous vehicle navigation. The nature and tuning of the controller decides how well the vehicle follows a defined trajectory. A poorly tuned controller can cause the vehicle to oversteer or understeer at turns leading to deviation from a defined path. However, controller performance also depends on the state–feedback system. If the states used for controller input are noisy or has bias / systematic error, the navigation performance of the vehicle is affected irrespective of the control law and controller tuning. In this report, autonomous steering controller analysis is done for …

Mpc-Based Autonomous Driving Control With Localized Path Planning For Obstacle Avoidance And Navigating Signalized Intersections, Sai Rajeev Devaragudi

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Connected and autonomous vehicles are becoming the major focus of research for the industry and academia in the automotive field. Many companies and research groups have demonstrated the advantages and the requirement of such technology to improve the energy efficiency of vehicles, decrease the number of crash and road accidents, and control emissions.

This research delves into improving the autonomy of self-driving vehicles by implementing localized path planning algorithms to introduce motion control for obstacle avoidance during uncertainties. Lateral path planning is implemented using the A* algorithm combined with piecewise Bezier curve generation which provides an optimum trajectory reference to …

Modeling And Control Of Maximum Pressure Rise Rate In Rcci Engines, Aditya Basina

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Low Temperature Combustion (LTC) is a combustion strategy that burns fuel at lower temperatures and leaner mixtures in order to achieve high efficiency and near zero NOx emissions. Since the combustion happens at lower temperatures it inhibits the formation of NOx and soot emissions. One such strategy is Reactivity Controlled Compression Ignition (RCCI). One characteristic of RCCI combustion and LTC com- bustion in general is short burn durations which leads to high Pressure Rise Rates (PRR). This limits the operation of these engines to lower loads as at high loads, the Maximum Pressure Rise Rate (MPRR) hinders the use of …

Modeling Of Thermal Dynamics In Chevrolet Volt Gen Ii Hybrid Electric Vehicle For Integrated Powertrain And Hvac Optimal Operation Through Connectivity, Nehal Doshi

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Integrated thermal energy management across system level components in electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) is currently an under explored space. The proliferation of connected vehicles and accompanying infrastructure in recent years provides additional motivation to explore opportunities in optimizing thermal energy management in EVs and HEVs with the help of this newly available connected vehicle data. This thesis aims to examine and analyze the potential to mitigate vehicle energy consumption and extend usable driving range through optimal control strategies which exploit physical system dynamics via controls integration of vehicle subsystems.

In this study, data-driven and physics-based models …

Reinventing The Wheel, Esther K. Unti, Ahmed Z. Shorab, Patrick B. Kragen, Adam M. Menashe

Mechanical Engineering

Reinventing the Wheel selected tires and designed wheels for the 2018 Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo Formula SAE combustion vehicle. Available tire options were evaluated for steady-state and transient performance as well as vehicle integration. A single-piece composite wheel with hollow spokes was designed to meet stiffness, strength, and tolerance requirements. A detailed study of wheel loading and geometric structural efficiency was performed. Finite element analysis was used to iterate the geometry and laminate. A two-piece male mold was designed and machined to manufacture the wheel. Removable silicone inserts were used to create the hollow spokes.

Daimscale — 1:14th Tractor-Trailer For Testing Driver Assistance Technology, Christopher Marrale, Jase Sasaki, Devin Bodmer

Mechanical Engineering

Active driver assistance systems are becoming increasingly wide-spread throughout the automotive industry due to their potential for safer roads and decreased costs of transportation, but testing these systems on real trucks can be time consuming, dangerous, and costly. Testing these systems on a small-scale tractor-trailer combination will lead to faster and more efficient development of driver assistance systems and can be used by both engineers and students, leading to a larger field of experienced developers to improve these systems.

Our goal will be to design, manufacture, and build a scale 6x2 model of the tractor portion of a Daimler semi-truck …

Object Detection, Classification, And Tracking For Autonomous Vehicle, Milan Aryal

Masters Theses

The detection and tracking of objects around an autonomous vehicle is essential to operate safely. This paper presents an algorithm to detect, classify, and track objects. All objects are classified as moving or stationary as well as by type (e.g. vehicle, pedestrian, or other). The proposed approach uses state of the art deep-learning network YOLO (You Only Look Once) combined with data from a laser scanner to detect and classify the objects and estimate the position of objects around the car. The Oriented FAST and Rotated BRIEF (ORB) feature descriptor is used to match the same object from one image …

Polymer Injection Forming: A New Age Technology For Manufacturing Polymer-Metal Hybrids, Saeed Farahani

All Dissertations

Due to global competition, manufacturing firms in high-wage countries must target innovation in production processes and technologies that allow the mass manufacturing of customized products through highly efficient processes. Motivated by the concept of the integrative production systems, hybrid process of polymer injection molding and sheet metal forming, known as polymer injection forming (PIF), has been introduced to manufacture sheet metal-polymer components using a single tooling, machinery, and operating system. During this process, the sheet metal blank inside the injection mold is deformed by means of tool movement and/or by pressure of the polymer melt. As the melt cools, the …