Automotive Science and Engineering

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Global air pollution is a serious threat caused by excessive use of fossil fuels for transportation. Despite the fact that diesel fuel is a big environmental pollutant as it contains different hydrocarbons, sulphur and crude oil residues, it is yet regarded as a highly critical fuel due to its wide applications. Nowadays, biodiesel as a renewable additive is blended with diesel fuel to achieve numerous advantages such as lowering CO2, and CO emissions as well as higher lubricity. However, a few key drawbacks including higher production cost, deteriorated performance and likelihood to increase nitrogen oxide emissions have also been attributed to the application of diesel-biodiesel blends. Expanded polystyrene (EPS), known as a polymer for packaging and insulation, is an ideal material for energy recovery as it holds high energy value (1 kg of EPS is equivalent to 1.3 liters of liquid fuel). In this study, biodiesel was applied as a solvent of expanded polystyrene (EPS) during a special chemical and physical treatment. Various percentages of EPS in biodiesel blended diesel were tested to evaluate the fuel properties, emissions and performance of CI engine. The results of the variance analysis revealed that the addition of the additive improved diesel fuel properties by increasing the flash point as well as the reduction of density and viscosity. Despite a 3.6% reduction in brake power, a significant decrease in brake specific fuel consumption (7.26%) and an increase in brake thermal efficiency (7.83%) were observed at the full load and maximum speed of the engine. Additionally, considerable reductions of CO, CO2, NOx and smoke were achieved.

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In recent years, the balanced score card (BSC) has been the focus of considerable methodology for strategic cost management in management accounting area since it was originally proposed by Kaplan ,R.S. and Norton, D.P. in 1992. BSC is an approach to performance measurement based on both financial and nonfinancial information from four perspectives which are called financial, customer, internal business process, and learning and growth, in order to balance the traditional financial performance system by several grouping of performance measures: short-term and long-term, internal and external, and current and future. Over time, it has been developed to a strategic management system from a comprehensive performance measure, and used in many organizations such as business, hospital, and autonomy in many countries. In this paper, we propose a general model based on BSC by introducing fuzzy inference mechanism. From this, specialists’ knowledge and experience can be effectively reflected during the construction of the practical model. Then we illustrate a practical example for an Automotive Manufacturing Co.

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Artificial neural network was considered in previous studies for prediction of engine performance and emissions. ICA methodology was inspired in order to optimize the weights of multilayer perceptron (MLP) of artificial neural network so that closer estimation of output results can be achieved. Current paper aimed at prediction of engine power, soot, NOx, CO2, O2, and temperature with the aid of feed forward ANN optimized by imperialist competitive algorithm. Excess air percent, engine revolution, torque, and fuel mass were taken into account as elements of input layer in initial neural network. According to obtained results, the ANN-ICA hybrid approach was well-disposed in prediction of results. NOx revealed the best prediction performance with the least amount of MSE and the highest correlation coefficient(R) of 0.9902. Experiments were carried out at 13 mode for four cases, each comprised of amount of plastic waste (0, 2.5, 5, 7.5g) dissolved in base fuel as 95% diesel and 5% biodiesel. ANN-ICA method has proved to be selfsufficient, reliable and accurate medium of engine characteristics prediction optimization in terms of both engine efficiency and emission.

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The effects of unleaded gasoline and unleaded gasoline–ethanol blends on engine performance and pollutant emissions were investigated experimentally in a single cylinder, four-stroke spark-ignition engine with variable engine speeds (2600–3500 rpm). Four different blends on a volume basis were applied. These are E0 (0% ethanol + 100% unleaded gasoline), E3 (3% ethanol + 97% unleaded gasoline), E7 (7% ethanol + 93% unleaded gasoline) and E10 (10% ethanol + 90% unleaded gasoline). Results of the engine test indicated that using ethanol–gasoline blended fuels improve output torque, power, volumetric efficiency and fuel consumption of the engine it was also noted that fuel consumption depends on the engine speed rather than the ethanol content for ethanol less than 10% blended ratio. CO and unburned hydrocarbons emissions decrease dramatically as a result of the leaning effect caused by the ethanol addition CO2 emission increases because of the improved combustion.

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Due to the increasing development in various branches of the automotive industry, the need for a comfort climate in the cabin is more sensible. However, to achieve climate comfort, HVAC system consumes a considerable amount of engine power. Hence, improving HVAC system performance leads to more energy saving of the vehicle which is a critical factor for nowadays automotive. Besides, one crucial task of HVAC system is defrosting/defogging of windshield which is considered as a mandatory requirement in most countries. In the current study, the defrosting/defogging performance of HVAC system in the main product of national vehicle platform is numerically evaluated based on the ECE-78-715 legal requirement. For this purpose, after validation and mesh independency study, the transient air flow in three-dimensional cabin geometry is simulated by SSTk-ω turbulence model via ANSYS Fluent software and the windshield thermal condition is reported during defrosting/defogging. Besides, two national HVAC standards of AERC-10-01 and AERC-10-02 are also checked. The results demonstrate that HVAC system of the main product of the national vehicle platform can satisfactorily fulfill ECE-78-715, AERC-10-01 and AERC-10-02.

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According to the Global Fuel Crisis, it seems necessary to use alternative fuel instead of gasoline. Since the natural gas is cheaper, have higher frequency than gasoline and less pollution, it is a suitable fuel. Many efforts have been done in order to replace gasoline with natural gas. One of the methods is to inject natural gas and gasoline fuel simultaneously and to use the benefits of both fuels. The purpose of this paper is studying natural gas and gasoline blend effect on engine power, torque and emissions. The simulated model was validated in different engine RPMs for gasoline and natural gas, were separately injected into the engine at full load condition. The results of simulation was had good agreement with experiments. The results show that by natural gas and gasoline Simultaneous injection power and torque have been reduced. NOX, HC and CO2 Pollutants change periodically, but their production level is generally lower than gasoline mode, but the CO pollutant increases.

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Modern diesel engines should have higher pollutant emissions standards with better performance and by using split injection strategies which could optimize the air – fuel mixture, this purpose could be achieved. After achieving the successful validation between modeling and experimental results for both single and double injection strategies, for the first time and in this paper, double injection strategies with new nozzle configuration were used in which number of nozzle holes were doubled and located below the previous holes and then double injection strategies were implemented in a case that for each pulse of injections upper or below holes were used, then this study focused on the effects of the new nozzle configuration holes angle in each pulse of injections. This study confirms that split injection could decrease Nox emission, because it has lower maximum in-cylinder temperature than single injection case due to its separate second stage of combustion, also results showed that using new nozzle configuration with two rows of holes could be more effective in decreasing pollutant emissions without any significant effects on engine performance.

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New product development (NPD) is described in the literature as the transformation of a market opportunity into a product available for sale. In the automotive industry, within the context of ISO/TS16949:2002 (the automotive quality management system international standard),  these related to the product realization process (PRP) which consists of Three main phases such as planning, Implementation and sales, and  five sub-phases called  “Planning”, “Product Design”, “Process Design and Development”, “Product and Process Verification and Validation”, and “Production”. These phases could be done concurrently and have correlated activities.

 There has been a wide range of working in new product development but in automotive section no contributes has been done before. The paper proposes a contribution between the new product development performance factors of a same project in a developed country and developing country. It shows the differences of employee and systems ways of thinking in two above mentioned categories. The  main factors were extracted from literatures which are Goal clarity; Process formalization, Process Concurrency, Iteration, Learning, Team Leadership, Team Experience, Team Dedication, Internal Integration, External integration, Empowerment and Architecture. Having differences of people and systems thinking of new product development process of automotive engineering in two different working stations will be helpful in developing a complete model for performance measurement of a new product development in automotive industry. The questionnaires were made to analyze the value of each factor via employee view and system view and distribute in two different bases. The differences are illustrated in the paper.

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To improve the engine performance and reduce emissions, factors such as changing ignition and injection timing along with converting of port injection system to direct injection in SI(spark-ignited) engines and hydrogen enrichment to CNG fuel at WOT conditions have a great importance. In this work, which was investigated experimentally (for CNG engine) and theoretically (for combustion Eddy Break-Up model and turbulence model is used) in a single- cylinder four-stroke SI engine at various engine speeds (2000-6000 rpm in 1000 rpm intervals), injection timing (130-210 crank angle(CA) in 50 CA intervals), ignition timing (19-28 CA in 2 degree intervals), 20 bar injection pressure and five hydrogen volume fraction 0% to 50% in the blend of HCNG. The results showed that fuel conversion efficiency, torque and power output were increased, while duration of heat release rate was shortened and found to be advanced. NOx emission was increased with the increase of hydrogen addition in the blend and the lowest NOx was obtained at the lowest speed and retarded ignition timing, hence 19° before top dead center. 

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In order to achieve a successful new product, and certainly the successful implementation of a new product into a company, it is necessary to have a structured and documented approach to New Product Development (NPD), therefore providing a clear roadmap for the development of new products.New product development is a multi-stage process. Many different models with a varying number of stages have been proposed in the literature which in this paper are briefing them. This review highlights the NPD Models and process, from concept to consumer, and aim to find the consist gap of different NPD’s models in order for a company to succeed and use New products as a source for Competitive advantage.

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This paper mainly discusses the thermal behavior and performance of Lithium-ion batteries utilized in hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) based on numerical simulations. In this work, the battery’s thermal behavior is investigated at different C-rates and also contour plots of phase potential for both tabs and volume-monitored plot of maximum temperature inside the computational domain is illustrated. The numerical simulation is done via ANSYS Fluent traditional software package which utilizes the dual potential multi-scale multi-dimensional (MSMD) battery model to analyze the cell discharge behavior and investigate the thermal performance and potential variation(s). The results show that the maximum temperature of battery surface is proportional to the battery discharge rate, i.e., the higher the C-rate, the greater cell surface temperature. Moreover, an increasing symmetric pattern is noticed for volume monitor of maximum temperature over the simulation period. Finally, it is worth noting that the battery tab potential varies more quickly if the C-rate becomes greater. In fact, the lowest and highest rate of changes are observed for 1C and 4C, respectively.

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Changing the compression ratio and presence of turbocharger are two important issues, affecting on performance, and exhaust emissions in internal combustion engines. To study the functional properties and exhaust emissions in regards to compression ratio at different speeds, the numerical solution of the governing equations on the fluid flow inside the combustion chamber and the numerical solution of one-dimensional computational fluid dynamics with the GT-Power software carried out. The diesel engine was with a displacement of 6.4 Lit and Turbocharged six-cylinder. In this engine was chosen, the compression ratio between 15: 1 and 19: 1 with intervals of one unit and the range of engine speed was from 800 to 2400 rpm. The results showed that by the presence of a turbocharger and changing the compression ratio from 17: 1 to 19: 1, the braking power and torque increased by about 56.24% compared to the non-turbocharged engine. In addition, was reduced the brake specific fuel consumption due to higher power output. The amount of CO and HC emissions decreases based on the reduction of the compression ratio compared to the based case, and the NOX value increases due to the production of higher heat than turbocharged engines. The overall results showed that the turbocharged engine with a 19: 1 compression ratio has the best performance and pollution characteristics.

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Changing various parts of different types of engines in the maintenance phase was always a remarkable question. Purpose of the present study is identifying the performance and emissions of a diesel-fueled engine (OM457) before and after replacing connecting rod and crankshaft with another engine (OM444) in the same engine family.

At the first step, a solid model was made then some CFD analyses were done and, results were compared with previous studies for validation after that in the CFD modeling the impact of these parts replacement were observed, and the performance and emissions of this engine were compared with data before replacements.

As the result of these replacements, compression ratio and performance were decreased. HC and CO were increased due to lower air-fuel ratio, and NO_X was decreased because of the lower temperature of in cylinder. Lowering the CR of a diesel engine will reduce the NOx emission numerously but the increase in other emissions will be slight. So for the environment issues lowering the CR will be a practical and low cost method.

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In this research, the separate and simultaneous effects of pilot-main injection dwell time, pilot fuel quantity, and hydrogen gas addition on combustion characteristics, emissions formation, and performance in a heavy-duty diesel engine were investigated. To conduct the numerical study, valid and reliable models such as KH-RT for the break-up, K-Zeta-F for turbulence, and also ECFM-3Z for combustion were used. The effects of thirty-one different strategies based on two variables such as pilot-main injection dwell time (20, 25, 30, 35, and 40 CA) and pilot fuel quantity (5, 10, and 15% of total fuel per cycle) on NDC and DHC were investigated. The obtained results showed that by decreasing pilot-main injection dwell time due to shorter combustion duration and higher MCP, MCT, and HRRPP, amounts of CO and soot emissions decreased at the expense of high NOx formation. Also, increasing pilot fuel quantity due to higher combustion temperature and less oxygen concentration for the main fuel injection event led to an increase of NOx and soot emissions simultaneously. The addition of H2 due to significant heating value has increased IP and improved ISFC at the expense of NOx emissions but considerably decreased CO and soot emissions simultaneously.

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In internal combustion engines, the turbocharger and alternative fuels are two important factors affecting engine performance and exhaust emission. In this investigation, a one-dimensional computational fluid dynamics with GT-Power software was used to simulate a six-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine and the naturally aspirated diesel engine to study the performance and exhaust emissions with alternative fuels. The base fuel (diesel), methanol, ethanol, the blend of diesel and ethanol, biodiesel and decane was used. The results showed that decane fuel in the turbocharged engine has more brake power and torque (about 3.86%) compared to the base fuel. Also, the results showed that the turbocharger reduces carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions, and biodiesel fuel has the least amount of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon among other fuels. At the same time, the lowest NO_X emission was obtained by decane fuel. As a final result can be demonstrated that the decane fuel in the turbocharged engine and the biodiesel fuel in the naturally aspirated engine could be a good alternative ratio to diesel fuel in diesel engines.

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Due to very low PM and NOx emissions and considerable engine efficiency, dual-fuel combustion mode such as RCCI strategy attracted lots of attention compared to other combustion modes. In this numerical research work, the impacts of direct injection timing and pressure of diesel fuel on performance and level of engine-out emissions in a diesel-butanol RCCI engine was investigated. To simulate the combustion process, a reduced chemical kinetic mechanism, which consists of 349 reactions 76 species was used. The influence of thirty-six various strategies based on two diesel spraying characteristics such as injection pressure (650, 800, 1000, and 1200 bar) and diesel spray timing (300 to 340 CA with 5 CA steps) have been examined. Results indicated that, under the specific operating conditions like 1000-bar spray pressure by direct injection at 45 CA BTDC and the spray angle of 145 degrees, the level of cylinder-out pollutants such as CO (up to 26%), NOx (about 86%), PM (by nearly 71%) and HC (about 17.25%) have been simultaneously reduced. Also, ISFC decreased by about 2.3%, IP increased by about 2.4%, and also ITE improved by nearly 2% compared to the baseline engine operating conditions.

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Diesel engines are the most trusted sources in the transportation industry. They are also widely used in the urban transportation system. Most pollutants are related to these engines. Therefore, it is important to increase the performance and reduce exhaust emissions of these engines. Alternative fuels are key to meeting upcoming targets.
An experimental and numerical study was performed to investigate the effect of diesel fuel and hydrogen addition to diesel fuel from 0 to 30% on performance and exhaust emissions. Also in this research for changing diesel fuel, an indirect injection engine converted to direct injection engine. The simulation study was conducted by Star cd codes and experimental investigation was carried out on a diesel engine (Perkins 1103A-33TG1), three- cylinders, and four-stroke with maximum engine power 72.3hp at 1800 rpm. The results from this study showed that the increase of hydrogen to diesel fuel improves the thermal efficiency, resulting in lower specific fuel consumption. Also, the results showed that adding hydrogen until 30%, the cylinder pressure increase by about 9% and occurred the delay of peak pressure about 8 degrees of a crank angle compared to diesel fuel. The other obtained results in emission with 30%H2+Diesel showed the soot emission reduced 11.3%, HC and CO reduced nearly 36%, but NOx increased by about 8.3% due to high combustion temperature.

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The adaptive size-independent consensus problem of uni-directional (UD) and bi-directional (BD) decentralized large-scale vehicle convoys with uncertain dynamics has been investigated in this research work. The constant distance plan (CDP) is employed to adjust the distances between successive vehicles. We assume that only relative displacement information between adjacent vehicles is accessible (partial measurement) and other information such as relative velocity and acceleration are not provided. The stability of the convoy can be performed by the analysis of each couple of consecutive vehicles. The main objective is to design an adaptive size-independent control protocol maintaining internal and string stability based on CDP with only partial measurement. Appropriate adaptive rules are derived to estimate the uncertain dynamics by utilizing only relative displacement. It will be proved that the presented adaptive protocol assures both internal stability (asymptotic stability of closed-loop convoy) and string stability (tracking error attenuation) of large-scale decentralized UD and BD convoys under the CDP. Simulations demonstrate the efficiency of the presented control framework.

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