Project 1

Wiring Harness Design Project 1

Aim:-

Design and develop the Wiring harness on Given V6 Engine and Prepare flatten view drawing in CATIA V5. Application of all Packaging rules, Industry best practices studied in this course shall be demonstrated in design.

Prepare & Submit all necessary reports like clearance, Clipping/Clamping selection, Harness fixing requirements, Harness continuity, Assumptions if any along with CATIA 3D data.

Introduction:-

A wire harness, also commonly referred to as a wiring harness, is an exterior sheath used to cover some types of electronic wires. Generally, wiring harnesses are made of thermoplastic or thermoset materials that can help protect the cables from the environment.

Engine Harness:-

An engine wiring harness is constricted wires, cables, terminals, and connectors controlling a vehicle’s electrical system. It relays electrical power and control information to components such as batteries, alternators, fuel injectors, fuses, audio systems, blower motors, fuel injectors, and computers. Wire harness companies customize it for every location, application, and design it interconnects. Also known as a cable harness, it is more than just a collection of multiple wires put together.

It manages the key functions around the engine including engine controller, oil controller gate, transmission plug housing, air pipe sensors, pressure sensors, and water temperature sensors.

An engine wiring harness is how each part of your vehicle gets electricity. It is crucial to help the vehicle run and it’s usually made of a heat-resistant rubber to handle the high and low temperatures that vehicles often experience. The vehicle needs more than the engine, and it requires a lot of electricity for certain things to function, like the radio or lights. Beyond that, battery, starter, and even alternator run on power, which is provided by the engine. Without an engine wiring harness, we couldn’t start your vehicle.

How Does the Engine Wiring Harness Work?

There are many cables in the engine wiring harness that work to connect electricity to your vehicle parts. This vehicle part has many sensors, and they work to ensure that everything in your vehicle is in working order. Some of these major systems in your car are fuel and transmission. When you get a check engine light, you have the engine wiring harness to thank.

It works by using these cables and a fuse box. They wire the electricity produced by the engine to the various parts and sensors. It is created using high-temperature plastic or rubber because the engine heats up a lot. That could cause the engine wiring harness to melt over time. And while this is a rare occurrence, it does happen.

Think of this part of the vehicle like the brain. Without it, it wouldn’t be possible to get the information your vehicle needs. It’s always working overtime to relay the data your vehicle needs to function correctly. Whenever a sensor goes off, it’s because the engine wiring harness alerted the sensor of the problem.

The exciting thing is that as vehicles get more advanced, the engine wiring harness grows. Some say that new cars have over 100 pounds of wires, so imagine how many things could go wrong with that. In the past, there may not have been many issues. However, as things advance, there are more to go wrong.

Engine Wiring Harness protection:-

Protecting the wires is crucial to the safety of the vehicle. Wires exposed to high temperatures, erosive chemicals and projectiles will be damaged leading to fires, brake failures and critical malfunctions. To prevent these issues, wires need to be bundled and covered.

install wiring insulation or heat shield sleeve material that can withstand direct contact with high-temperature surfaces and is flameproof. It needs to be a material built specifically for under hood automotive applications and withstand constant temperatures up to 125°C, or 257°F.

There are many options for protecting the wires in a vehicle’s harness. Zip ties securely bundle wire together but offer little protection or insulation. Plastic conduits offer protection from rough surfaces, although they can add weight and are not as flexible as other options. Heat-shrink tubing provides protection from heat, moisture and chemicals. However, the application is time-consuming.

Tape is another option for bundling and protecting wires. Tapes are more flexible and cost-effective than other bundling options because they can be used for protective wrapping, bundling and sealing. With a wide variety of backings and adhesives, tape can offer sound dampening, thermal and electrical insulation and abrasion protection of the same quality of the other methods. Additionally, tapes are more flexible, lighter and easier to apply than tubing or plastic conduit.

Objective:-

The objective of the project is to route the wiring harness on given V16 Engine and prepare flatten view drawing in CATIA V5. All types of packaging rules have to be considered while routing the harness. Also, Industry best practices should be demonstrated in design. All the necessary details like clearance, clipping/clamping selection, harness fixing requirements, harness continuity should be provided in order to design wiring harness.

• The above figure shows the 16 valve where 8 cylinders are placed on the right side and 8 cylinders are placed on the left side.
• There are total 16 injectors where 8 injectors are used for 8 cylinders on right side and 8 injectors are used for another 8 cylinders on left side.
• Also there are 4 cam-shaft sensors, so there are total 20 sensors that we have to connected electrically.
• Generally, 12-pole connectors are used for fuel injectors of the engine.
• The engine will also have an interconnection connector which will connect the engine to other parts of the vehicle. We will be using a 12-pole electrical connector with a mounting clip feature as an interconnection connector.
• The plastic guiding channel used in this harness should be made of a material that can withstand at least 150 degree Celcius.
• The bend ratio for the all bundle segmets should be 1.4

Assumptions:-

1. Provide clips/clamps as per requirement.
2. Make sure that there is no any fauling case while designing the wire harness. Additional clips/clamps may be used to avoid fauling case.
3. Give additional slack if needed. 5-10% slack is sufficient.
4. Avoid routing over bolt and bolted joints to avoid harness puncture.
5. Avoid routing on sharp edges or else provide protection over the harness.
6. Follow the clearance distance and keep away the harness from heat generation components.
7. Protection should be provided as needed according to surrounding temperature.
8. Avoid direct support for harness on fuel lines routed in the engine.
9. Use plastic guiding channels if needed.
10. Branch length should be greater than 50mm.
11. Minimum distance between two branch points should be at least 50mm.
12. Minimum distance between clip and branch point should be at least 25mm.
13. Avoid too many sheet metal brackets on the engine. Try to use available threaded bosses on the engine or demand for it.
14. The wiring harness should be easy to assemble and easy to access.
15. While using dummy connectors, ensure that whatever positions you are defining that are practical. Bundle diameters and another placements can be defined properly for the wire harness routing.
16. If the packaging area is too tight and there are many packaging constraints then we can think of creating harness channel which can be used to route and protect the wire harness effectively.

Creating Context Assembly:-

Define 12P Connector Electrically:-

Define 2P Connector Electrically:-

Define Fir Tree Clip Electrically:-

Define Channel Bottom Electrically:-

Channel Top:-

L Clip:-

Adding connectors to the all 16 fuel injector sensors and 4 cam-shaft sensors:-

In this step, we are placing connectors to fuel injector sensors and cam-shaft sensors. So we will require total 20 connectors which have to be added in the Engine Harness Geometrical Bundle Assembly. We have to use manipulation tools along with compass, snap and smart move features to locate all the 20 connectors at their desired locations.

Adding L Clip:-

Now, we have to add sheet metal bracket in order to provide mounting for the interconnection connector. Also, we have to make sure that the bracket is placed inside the context assembly and outside of engine and geometrical bundle assembly. The bracket should be mounted on the existing bolt as shown below. This bracket should have locking system in clockwise direction so that it can't be move freely. Herein below figure, rib is performing the locking feature for the bracket. All the design ideas should be discussed with the engine designing team so that there won't be any disturbance for the smooth working of engine in real world application.

• Now, we have to mount that electrically connected interconnection connector and cavity on sheet metal bracket as shown in above figure.
• We have to mount 3 P-clamps also on the existing bolts of the engine so before that we have to define P-clamp electrically with geometrical parameters, entry and exit point on both left and right side of the P-clamp as shown in below figure.
• Here, we have mounted 3 P-clamps on the existing bolts of the engine for the wire harness routing as shown in above figure.
• In above figure, we have mounted furr tree clip also for the smooth path to wiring harness routing towards guiding channel on both right and left side

Mounting of a plastic guiding channel:-

We have to add now plastic guiding channel because Bugatti V16 engine has 8 injectors on right side and 8 injectors on left side which are very close to each other. Hence plastic guiding channel is best option for proper and easy routing of the wiring harness. It will reduce the complex wiring harness routing. We will require two different guiding channel for both right and left side of the engine. Now, before placing guiding channel, we have to define geometrical parameters of guiding channel as below.

• After electrically define of guiding channel, we have located guiding channel at desired place as shown in above figure.
• Here, we have used different commands like manipulation, snap, smart move, compass etc. for placing of guiding channel.
• Now at this stage, we have just located bottom of the guiding channel.

Images Of The Electrcal Harness:-

The connectors in the assembly should be electrically defined and it is placed in the appropriated position on the engine surface.After positioning the connectors place the supporting mounting clips in the engine to acheive the proper routing without fouling of the bundle with the surrounding parts.After achieving ths route the harness in the geometric bundle , make sure the bundle segment do not clash with the surronding parts.Flatten the geometric bundle after finalised the geometric bundle , make sure for the bundle connectivity in the wiring harness.

Adding protective coverings and guiding channels top shell to harness bundle:-

Here in below figure, we have done with whole wiring harness routing for the V16 Engine. Now, we have to add protective coverings to all bundle segments and top shell of the guiding channel.

Checking bundle continuity:-

In this step, first we have to make sure that multi-branchable is selected then we have to go in Edit>Search>Advanced>Workbench-Electrical>Type-Bundle Segment>Attribute-Fully Connected

• By selecting 'True' option will show all the connected bundle segments while selecting 'False' option will show all the non-connected bundle segments.
• Here, we have selected for the 'True' option and searched for results. All the bundle segments are highlighted found showing that all the bundle segments are electrically connected as shown in below figure.

Creating flatten view of the engine harness geometrical bundle assembly:-

In this step, for creating flatten view we have to work in Electrical Harness Flattening workbench of Catia V5. We should also make sure that the flattening file is saved in the same folder where other files of harness assembly are saved.

• We have extracted the bundle assembly into Engine Harness Flattening Product file and then flattened the file along face of interconnection connector as shown in above figure.
• At this stage, for clarity, we have been hidden the flattening diagram of the plastic guiding channels from the drawing view.

• In above figure, we are creating new drawing file and defined all the necessary drawing parameters. We have to insert the front view of the Engine Harness Flattening Product file into the Drawing file.

Conclusion:-

In this project i have successfully routed the wiring harness for the V16 Engine assembly and the flatten-view drawing was prepared in CATIA V5. Various packaging rules and constraints were considered while routing the harness. After finalizing the wire routing, we can request the corresponding Engine design team to provide additional holes for the mounting of Fir tree clips.