Automotive Science and Engineering
Volume:6 Issue: 4, Autumn 2016

This study tries to redesign the interior design of inter-city bus in order to fulfill needs of Iranian User. The goal of this study is practically investigate how user centered design can be applied considering cultural needs of Iranian user. By defining common needs between cultural and physical aspects of Iranian user, the main focus was on improving the sitting condition of the traveler with intercity bus. Ergonomic redesign of the Bus Seat was the result of such a study

Accurate and correct performance of controller in cruise control systems is important. Hence, in such systems, controller should optimize itself against noise and probable changes in system dynamic. As a matter of fact, in this article three approaches have been conducted to-ward this purpose MIT, direct estimation and indirect estimation. These approaches are used as controllers to track reference signal. First the performance of each of these three controllers is checked. comparison of performances indicated better behavior for indirect estimation than others. Also, it has less sensitivity against external noise. Finally, by using indirect estimation method as an adaptive control approach, two parallel separate controllers are designed for two inputs, gas and braking, and their performances are compared with recent studies. It shows improvement in performance of adaptive cruise control system to track reference signal.

The designing of advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous vehicles needs measurement of dynamical variations of vehicle, such as acceleration, velocity and yaw rate. Designed adaptive controllers to control lateral and longitudinal vehicle dynamics are based on the measured variables. Inertial MEMS-based sensors have some benefits including low price and low consumption that make them suitable choices to use in vehicle navigation problems. However, these sensors have some deterministic and stochastic error sources. These errors could diverge sensor outputs from the real values. Therefore, calibration of the inertial sensors is one of the most important processes that should be done in order to have the exact model of dynamical behaviors of the vehicle. In this paper, a new method, based on artificial neural network, is presented for the calibration of an inertial accelerometer applied in the vehicle navigation. Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm is used to train the designed neural network. This method has been tested in real driving scenarios and results show that the presented method reduces the root mean square error of the measured acceleration up to 96%. The presented method can be used in managing the traffic flow and designing collision avoidance systems.

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.

Off-road cars’ windshields are vulnerable to different types of stones, road debris and pebbles due to common off paved and gravel surfaces in which they drive. Any attempt to design windshield that minimizes injury and death of occupants during a vehicle accident requires a thorough understanding of the mechanical behavior of automotive windshield subjected to foreign object impact loads. In this study, some drop ball tests in different impact energy levels are conducted in order to monitor fracture behavior of an off-road automotive windshield. Also dynamic crack patterns of laminated glasses are examined based on the impact energy levels and impact conditions. In addition, the acceleration which is imposed to impactor during the accident is recorded. The experimental results are compared to an analytical approach regarding the resultant impact force as well. There is a good agreement between the impact forces of experimental test results and analytical approaches ones. All in all, in low velocity impacts, impact energy releases through powdering region in impact area, radial cracks and strain energy in PVB. It is concluded that in lower impact energy levels, the higher impact speed, the more number of radial cracks. In addition, at higher energy levels, number of radial cracks decease due to higher strain energy levels in PVB interlayer. Therefore, in low velocity impacts, number of radial cracks has reverse relationship with penetration depth in PVB interlayer.

In this study an experimental analysis is conducted to explore the effects of the distance placement of a trailer model on the dynamic of flow and the higher-order parameters of velocity like flatness and skeweness in the wake of a Notch back car model. In addition, the changing trends of Strouhal number and the mixed length scale are depicted. All the experiments are conducted in the aerodynamic laboratory of Hakim Sabzevari University. In order to measure the property of flow, the researchers have made use of the wind tunnel device and hot wire anemometer produced by Farasanjesh-e-Saba Company. The results indicated that the values of skewness in the lower heights (near to ground) are less than their values in the upper heights (near to roof of model) and this issue is in contrast as the distance from the car increases. The values of flatness also gradually decrease by an increase in the distance from the car. The Strouhal number often reduces by increase in the distance of car from trailer and the mixed length scale in the width of trailer often has one or two maximum peaks. The wake of trailer in positions near the car is not effective in the formation of maximum peaks of mixed length scale sites.