Browse Topic: Fuel economy
Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRPs) have become essential in modern aerospace structures, from fuselage skins and wing components to nacelles, interior structures, and a growing range of primary load-bearing parts. Their high strength-to-weight ratio delivers major benefits in fuel efficiency, payload capacity, and fatigue performance. Yet achieving reliable adhesive bonds on CFRP surfaces remains a persistent engineering challenge. The low intrinsic surface energy of composites - particularly under thermal cycling, vibration, and moisture exposure - limits bond durability unless surfaces are properly prepared. Plasma surface treatment has emerged as a pivotal solution, offering a fast, controllable, and non-destructive way to increase surface energy, improve wettability, and enhance adhesion across complex geometries. This is especially important as the aerospace industry transitions from thermoset to thermoplastic composites (TPCs), which enable faster processing, lower
The purpose of this research is to examine the fundamental principles of a circular economy (CE) in relation to the automotive industry in India, which plays a vital role in the country's economy. As a result, energy consumption and environmental impacts also pose significant challenges. CE provide a transformative approach through the life cycle of a vehicle, guiding the automotive industry toward a more sustainable transportation system. In order to decarbonize this industry, the global automotive commission recommends that recycled plastic content in vehicles be increased to 20-25% by 2030. This target necessitates the recovery of plastics from end-of-life vehicles, though these materials are rarely integrated into compounds today. The automotive industry's reliance on plastics has grown substantially due to their lightweight properties, which enhance fuel efficiency, reduce CO₂ emissions, and improve versatility and mechanical performance. polypropylene polymer and several other
The globe is looking headlong to set up new benchmarks for the reduction of GHG (Green House Gases) considering short-term and long-term strategies. Efforts in the Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) domain have been accelerating to find an alternative way to reduce harmful emissions. Hydrogen is considered as a promising fuel to leapfrog this transition. Hydrogen fuel can be categorized into vast mobility areas viz. ICE and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV). Hydrogen fuel has attracted global attention from engine researchers due to the crude oil crisis and its rise in prices in recent years. This will serve the nation's goal towards carbon neutrality. Hydrogen has a few advantages such as less fueling time, higher heating value and more efficiency making it an eye-touching fuel for the automotive industry. In the contemporary FCEV segment, many fuel cell technologies have evolved, wherein the development of Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell technology has taken a new height for
Aluminum alloy wheels have become the preferred choice over steel wheels due to their lightweight nature, enhanced aesthetics, and contribution to improved fuel efficiency. Traditionally, these wheels are manufactured using methods such as Gravity Die Casting (GDC) [1] or Low Pressure Die Casting (LPDC) [2]. As vehicle dynamics engineers continue to increase tire sizes to optimize handling performance, the corresponding increase in wheel rim size and weight poses a challenge for maintaining low unsprung mass, which is critical for ride quality. To address this, weight reduction has become a priority. Flow forming [3,4], an advanced wheel rim production technique, which offers a solution for reducing rim weight. This process employs high-pressure rollers to shape a metal disc into a wheel, specifically deforming the rim section while leaving the spoke and hub regions unaffected. By decreasing rim thickness, flow forming not only enhances strength and durability but also reduces overall
In automotive engineering, understanding driving behavior is crucial for decision on specifications of future system designs. This study introduces an innovative approach to modeling driving behavior using Graph Attention Networks (GATs). By leveraging spatial relationships encoded in H3 indices, a graph-based model constructed, which captures dependencies between various vehicle operational parameters and their operational regions using H3 indices. The model utilizes CAN signal features such as speed, fuel efficiency, engine temperature, and categorical identifiers of vehicle type and sub-type. Additionally, regional indices are incorporated to enrich the contextual information. The GAT model processes these heterogeneous features, learning to identify patterns indicative of driving behavior. This approach offers several significant advantages. Firstly, it enhances the accuracy of driving behavior modeling by effectively capturing the complex spatial and operational dependencies
The present work demonstrates a transient Fluid-Structure-Interaction (FSI) based numerical methodology for estimation of aerodynamic-induced flutter of the rear bumper of a Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV). Finite Volume Method (FVM) based High-fidelity transient full vehicle aerodynamic simulations were conducted for the estimation of the transient aerodynamic load. Subsequently, by mapping this transient aero load onto the surface of the rear bumper, Finite Element Method (FEM) based dynamic structural simulations were performed to predict its response. The results obtained through simulations were then compared against experimental wind tunnel test data of a prototype car with modified bumper for the specific test-case. The pressure and the time series data of rear bumper deflection were captured at multiple probe locations from wind tunnel experiments at 140 and 200 kmph. The distribution of pressure on the rear surfaces of the car was well captured by the aerodynamic simulation at
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