Step-by-step correlation between calculated and measured data in order to reduce errors by vehicle simulation tools

In designing a new vehicle is necessary to estimate the vehicle performance, emission pollutants, and fuel consumption. Also is necessary check if the fuel economy technologies contents are attend the project goals. Therefore, simulate the vehicles on fuel consumption simulation tools, are crucial to attend the project time and cost.

One of aspects more critical on simulation tools is its ability to reflect the vehicle reality accurately. The proposal of this work is to present a methodology to check the accuracy of vehicle simulation results using an analysis step-by-step process of errors between the simulated and experimental dynamometer vehicle data collected under FTP-75 and HWFET cycles. The tests were performed on a Flex Fuel vehicle fueled by Brazilian's ethanol and gasoline fuels and the final fuel economy results. Good agreement between simulation and test results were obtained, demonstrating that this process is technically sound to improve the fuel consumption simulation accuracy.