The tire blowout is potentially one of the most critical accidents that may occur on the road. Following a tire blowout, the mechanical behavior of the tire is extremely affected and the forces generating from the interaction of the tire and the ground are redistributed. This severe change in the mechanism of tire force generation influences the dynamic characteristics of the vehicle significantly. Thus, the vehicle loses its directional stability and has a risk of departing its lane and colliding with other vehicles or the guardrail. This work aims to further broaden our current knowledge of the vehicle dynamic response to a blowout scenario during both rectilinear and curvilinear motions. To that end, a fourteen degrees of freedom full vehicle model combined with the well-grounded Dugoff’s tire models is developed and validated using the high fidelity MSC Adams package. To examine the effect of the tire blowout on the dynamic behavior of the vehicle, a series of tests incorporating a tire blowout is conducted in both rectilinear and curvilinear maneuvers with different tire burst locations. It is observed that the reconstruction of the tire forces resulting from blowout leads to a substantial change in the dynamics of the vehicle as well as a severe directional instability and possibly a rollover accident. Consequently, a corrective safety control system utilizing a braking/traction torque actuation mechanism is designed. The basic idea of the stability controller is to produce a regulated amount of input torque on one or more wheels apart from the blown tire. The proposed novel control-oriented model eliminates the simplifying assumptions used in the design of such controllers. Furthermore, a double integrator was augmented to enhance the steady-state performance of the sliding mode closed-loop system. The chattering problem stemmed by the switching nature of the controller is diminished through tuning the slope of saturation function. Different apparatuses are used in terms of actuation, using an individual front actuator, utilizing multi-actuator, and using two-wheel braking torques successively. It is found that the proposed controllers are perfectly capable of stabilizing the vehicle and robustly track the desired trajectory in straight-line and cornering maneuvers.

This research effort focuses on thermal management system (TMS) design for a high-performance, Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV). The thermal performance for various components in an electrified powertrain is investigated using a 3D finite difference model for a complete vehicle system, including inherently temperature-sensitive components. The components include the electric motor (EM), power electronics, Energy Storage System (ESS), and Internal Combustion Engine (ICE).

A model-based design approach is utilized, where a combination of experimental work and simulation are integrated. After defining heat sources and heat sinks within the power train system, temporal and spatial boundary conditions were extracted experimentally to facilitate the 3D simulation under different road-load scenarios. Material properties, surface conditions, and environmental factors were defined for the geometrical surface mesh representation of the system. Meanwhile the finite differencing code handles the heat transfer phenomena via conduction and radiation, all convective heat transfer mode within the powertrain are defined using fluid nodes and fluid streams within the powertrain.

Conclusions are drawn through correlating experimental results to the outcome from the thermal model. The outcome from this research effort is a 3D thermal performance predictive tool that can be utilized in order to evaluate the design of advanced thermal management systems (TMSs) for alternative powertrains in early design/concept stages of the development process.

For future work, it is recommended that a full validation of the 3D thermal model be completed. Subsequently, design improvements can be made to the TMS. Some possible improvements include analysis and evaluation of shielding of the catalytic converter, exhaust manifold, and power electronics, as well as substituting for material with better thermal performance in other temperature-sensitive components, where applicable. The result of this improvement in design would be achieving an effective TMS for a high-performance PHEV.

Hydrogen fuel cells have been previously investigated as a viable replacement to traditional gas turbine auxiliary power unit onboard fixed wing commercial jets. However, so far no study has attempted to extend their applicability to rotary wing aircrafts. To aid in the advancement of such innovative technologies, a holistic technical approach is required to ensure risk reduction and cost effectiveness throughout the product lifecycle. This paper will evaluate the feasibility of replacing a gas turbine auxiliary power unit on a helicopter with a direct hydrogen, air breathing, proton exchange membrane fuel cell, all while emphasizing a system engineering approach that utilize a specialized set of tools and artifacts.

For years the automotive industry has been shifting towards hybridization and electrification of conventional powertrains due to increase in fossil fuel cost and environmental impact due heavy emission of Green House Gases (GHG) and various pollutants into atmosphere by combustion engine powered vehicles. Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV) have proved to achieve superior fuel economy and reduced emissions. Supervisory control strategies determining the power split among various onboard power sources are evolving with time, providing better fuel economies.

With increasing complexity of control systems driving HEV’s, mathematical modeling and simulation tools have become extremely advanced and have derived whole industry into adopting Model Based Design (MBD) and Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) techniques to validate the performance of HEV systems in real world.

This report will present a systematic mythology where MBD techniques are used to develop hybrid powertrain, supervisory control strategies and control systems. To validate the effectiveness of various energy management strategies for HEV energy management in a real world scenario, Conventional rule-based power split strategies are compared against advanced Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategy (ECMS), in software and HIL environment.

Since effective utilization of the fuel reduction potential of a HEV powertrain requires a careful design of the energy management control methodology, an advanced ECMS strategy involving implementation with Fuzzy Logic to reduce computational overload has been proposed. Conventional real-time implementation of ECMS based strategy is difficult due to the involvement of heavy computation. Methods like Fuzzy Logic based estimation can be used to reduce this computational overload.

Real-time energy management is obtained by adding a Fuzzy Logic based on-the-fly algorithm for the estimation of driving profile and adaptive equivalent consumption minimization strategy (A-ECMS) framework. The control strategy is implemented to function without any prior knowledge of the future driving conditions. The idea is to periodically refresh the energy management strategy according to the estimated driving pattern, so that the Battery State of Charge (SOC) is maintained within the boundaries and the equivalent fuel consumption is minimized. The performance of the presented Fuzzy Logic based adaptive control strategy utilizing driving pattern recognition is benchmarked using a Dynamic Programming based global optimization approach.

Current hybrid vehicle and/or Fuel Cell Vehicle (FCV) use both FC and an electric system. The sequence of the electric power train with the FC system is intended to achieve both better fuel economies than the conventional vehicles and higher performance. Current hybrids use regenerative braking technology, which converts the vehicles kinetic energy into electric energy instead of wasting it. A hybrid vehicle is much more fuel efficient than conventional Internal Combustion (IC) engine and has less environmental impact The new hybrid vehicle technology with it's advanced with configurations (i.e. Mechanical intricacy, advanced driving modes etc) inflict an intrusion with the existing Thermal Management System (TMS) of the conventional vehicles. This leaves for the opportunity for now thermal management issues which needed to be addressed. Till date, there has not been complete literature on thermal management issued of FC vehicles. The primary focus of this dissertation is on providing better cooling strategy for the advanced power trains. One of the cooling strategies discussed here is the thermo-electric modules.

The 3D Thermal modeling of the FC stack utilizes a Finite Differencing heat approach method augmented with empirical boundary conditions is employed to develop 3D thermal model for the integration of thermoelectric modules with Proton Exchange Membrane fuel cell stack. Hardware-in-Loop was designed under pre-defined drive cycle to obtain fuel cell performance parameters along with anode and cathode gas flow-rates and surface temperatures. The FC model, combined experimental and finite differencing nodal net work simulation modeling approach which implemented heat generation across the stack to depict the chemical composition process. The structural and temporal temperature contours obtained from this model are in compliance with the actual recordings obtained from the infrared detector and thermocouples. The Thermography detectors were set-up through dual band thermography to neutralize the emissivity and to give several dynamic ranges to achieve accurate temperature measurements. The thermocouples network was installed to provide a reference signal.

The model is harmonized with thermo-electric modules with a modeling strategy, which enables optimize better temporal profile across the stack. This study presents the improvement of a 3D thermal model for proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack along with the interfaced thermo-electric module. The model provided a virtual environment using a model-based design approach to assist the design engineers to manipulate the design correction earlier in the process and eliminate the need for costly and time consuming prototypes.

The slider-crank mechanism is popularly used in internal combustion engines to convert the reciprocating motion of the piston into a rotary motion. This research discusses an alternate mechanism proposed by the Wiseman Technology Inc. which involves replacing the crankshaft with a hypocycloid gear assembly. The unique hypocycloid gear arrangement allows the piston and the connecting rod to move in a straight line, creating a perfect sinusoidal motion. To analyze the performance advantages of the Wiseman mechanism, engine simulation software was used. The Wiseman engine with the hypocycloid piston motion was modeled in the software and the engine's simulated output results were compared to those with a conventional engine of the same size. The software was also used to analyze the multi-fuel capabilities of the Wiseman engine using a contra piston. The engine's performance was studied while operating on diesel, ethanol and gasoline fuel. Further, a scaling analysis on the future Wiseman engine prototypes was carried out to understand how the performance of the engine is affected by increasing the output power and cylinder displacement. It was found that the existing Wiseman engine produced about 7% less power at peak speeds compared to the slider-crank engine of the same size. It also produced lower torque and was about 6% less fuel efficient than the slider-crank engine. These results were concurrent with the dynamometer tests performed in the past. The 4 stroke diesel variant of the same Wiseman engine performed better than the 2 stroke gasoline version as well as the slider-crank engine in all aspects. The Wiseman engine using contra piston showed poor fuel efficiency while operating on E85 fuel. But it produced higher torque and about 1.4% more power than while running on gasoline. While analyzing the effects of the engine size on the Wiseman prototypes, it was found that the engines performed better in terms of power, torque, fuel efficiency and cylinder BMEP as their displacements increased. The 30 horsepower (HP) prototype, while operating on E85, produced the most optimum results in all aspects and the diesel variant of the same engine proved to be the most fuel efficient.