Project
A.Reducing weight means reducing fuel cost. A recent study found that for every 100-kg reduction, the combined city/highway fuel consumption could decrease by about 0.4 L/100 km for cars and about 0.5 L/100 km for light trucks.Most of the research has been taking place on use of lightweight materials such as Aluminium, Magnesium, High Strength Steel (HSS), polymer, composites, carbon fibre etc to replace heavier materials and achieve a lightweight vehicle. Majority of research is focused towards developing light weighting solutions in automotive powertrain, chassis, and body components, which constitute up to 80% of total vehicular weight. Shifting their research focus towards these components, OEMs are making significant strides in automotive interior space; covering components such as engines, transmissions, chassis parts, seating structures etc to achieve potential weight savings. It is predicted that High Strength Steel (HSS) and Aluminium will be the most widely used materials in automotive manufacturing by 2030.
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Many EV manufacturers, including Tesla and BMW, have ditched carbon fibre for better performing light alloys, which at the moment mainly includes aluminium. The chassis and body on Tesla’s Model S is made almost entirely of aluminium. But magnesium is catching the eye for many auto manufacturers, thanks to advancements in coating technologies which are making it suitable in high-wear, high-corrosion risk and high temperature applications.
But carbon fibre isn’t being ditched completely. Once unthinkable for any application under the hood, the development of carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics (CFRP) has revolutionised the properties of plastic – not least its reaction to heat and heard-wearing. What’s more, due to CFRPs ability to be 3D printed, it could prove a ultra-cheap method of reducing weight for vehicle parts in less intensive applications in the future.
In order to help automakers, attain weight reductions in transmissions, O-OKA Japan, is using the process of net-shape forging to produce a wide range of gears, aiming to minimize material usage and machining efforts to further downsize, imparting optimum material strength. O-OKA makes 42 million net-forged gears per annum for its OEM customers worldwide which find a variety of applications in transmissions such as manual, semi-automatic, automatic, hybrid, DCT, and EV powertrains.
B Optimized design and operation of internal combustion engines to improve their performance, efficiency, and environmental impact:
Advanced Ignition System
Advanced ignition systems have been studied as a technology for downsizing boosted engines with dilution combustion. These technologies comprise:
<!-- [if !supportLists]-->· <!--[endif]-->Laser ignition.
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Advanced igniting systems for gasoline engines are necessary to improve engine thermal efficiency under dilution combustion conditions. In addition, many of these systems improve the combustible mixture’s ignition energy or dispersed the ignition energy into the entire combustible charge
Advanced Gas Exchange for Improving Thermal Efficiency
Exhaust Gas Turbocharging
Variable Geometry Turbocharging
Variable geometry turbocharging (VGT) is a very successful method to improve the transient operation of turbocharged diesel engines. Contrary to most other methods, the improvement is achieved by pivoting the angle of the swing blade or by moving the nozzle sidewall, rather than the reduction in the inertia. A combination of improved mechanical innovations such as multiple injections and elevated injection pressures and advanced control have mitigated the noise level concerns mainly in the current generation of common rail designs
Electrically Assisted Turbocharging
The electric turbocharger assistance (ETA), mechanically coupled with a turbocharger shaft, offers tremendous opportunities for improvements in fuel efficiency. The ETA is primarily used to boost the transient response and low-end torque that indirectly reduces engine fuel consumption and CO2 emissions . It might also be used for the recovery of part of the waste heat by employing electric turbo compounding .It can be considered one of the most appealing solutions as it extracts mechanical energy from the engine exhaust gas to support boost. Therefore, engine downsizing can be achieved by improving transient response. The ETA has several advantages, including eliminating the turbo-lag, regulating the turbocharger speed, facilitating engine downsizing, and improving fuel efficiency.
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Hybrid Exhaust Gas Recycle
It is crucial to optimize the EGR system to attain high-efficiency clean combustion in engines .There are numerous EGR systems for EGR implementation such as high-pressure loop (HPL-EGR), low-pressure loop (LPL-EGR), and the combination of two loops commonly called dual loop (DL-EGR). The HPL-EGR is commonly used in diesel engines owing to its simplified configuration, lower compressor fouling effect, and increased EGR responsiveness performance.