<p> Electric Vehicle (EV) has become an increasingly important topic in recent years due to energy and environmental concerns. Governments started to focus on remedies to the upcoming climate change threat and seek solutions through policies and regulations. The negative impact of carbon emissions along with pressure from governmental and social organizations force automotive manufacturers to shift to alternative energy sources. However, EV transition is a complex problem because its stakeholders are very diverse including governments, policy makers, EV manufacturers, and Non-Government Organizations (NGOs). Consequently, the barriers to EV adoption are not only consumer oriented, rather exist under many categories. The literature has yet to offer a comprehensive, quantified list of barriers to EV adoption. Although the enacted policies are known, the effectiveness of these policies in mitigating EV adoption is not known. </p><p> The objective of this research is to assess policy alternatives for mitigation of EV adoption barriers by developing a comprehensive evaluation model. Barriers are grouped under Social, Technical, Environmental, Economic and Political (STEEP) perspectives that are perceived by decision makers as important for adoption process. The decision model of research links the perspectives to barriers, and policy alternatives. The research implements the hierarchical decision model (HDM) to construct a generalized policy assessment framework. </p><p> Data for EV adoption barriers were collected from the abovementioned stakeholders. </p><p> Experts&rsquo; qualitative judgments were collected and quantified using the pair-wise comparison method. The final rankings and effectiveness of policy alternatives were calculated. This research&rsquo;s results showed that the most important perspective is Economic. The top three most important barriers to EV adoption were identified as Initial Cost, Battery Cost, and Entrenched Technology Resistance, respectively. The most effective policy in mitigating EV adoption barriers is R&amp;D Incentives. The research also extended the policy effectiveness research with Policy Effectiveness Curves by reaching out to additional experts. These curves helped determine the effectiveness of each of the 6 policies at different implementation levels. Based on these results, 25 scenarios were applied by combinations of policies at different implementation levels to investigate how the effectiveness of policies can change compared to today&rsquo;s conditions.</p><p>

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<p> Environmental concerns are driving the automotive industry towards more sustainable and efficient forms of transportation such as electric vehicles. The electric drivetrains present in the various types of electric vehicles are much more efficient than traditional internal combustion engine drivetrains and produce fewer greenhouse gases. The most popular type of motor used in electric vehicle drivetrains is the permanent magnet synchronous motor. This can be attributed to its inherent high power density, large torque to weight ratio, and high reliability and efficiency. Advanced control techniques for permanent magnet synchronous motor drives must be developed in order to meet the high performance and efficiency demands of modern electric vehicles. Application of the nonlinear control method known as sliding mode control is the focus of this work. Both first order and higher order sliding mode methods are considered. These control methods provide robustness to modeling inaccuracies, internal parameter variations, and external disturbances. In addition to permanent magnet synchronous motors, the sliding mode control methods are also applied to the buck-boost type DC-DC converter. DC-DC converters have found extensive applications, ranging from consumer electronics to electric vehicles and smart grid synchronization. Computer simulation studies verify the efficacy of the proposed control techniques.</p>

Thesis (M.S.)--Lehigh University, 2009. / Adviser: Eugenio Schuster.

<p> Proton exchange membrane fuel cells are a promising technology for the automotive industry. However, it is necessary to develop effective diagnostic tools to improve system reliability and operational life to be competitive in the automotive market. Early detection and diagnosis of fuel cell faults may lead to increased system reliability and performance. An efficient on-line diagnosis system may prevent irreparable damage due to poor control and system fatigue. Current attempts to monitor fuel cell stack health are limited to specialized tests that require numerous parameters. An increased effort exists to minimize parameter input and maximize diagnostic robustness. Most methods use complex models or black-box methods to determine a singular fault mode. Limited research exists with pre-processing or statistical methods. This research examines the effectiveness of a Na&iuml;ve Bayes classifier on determining multiple states of health; such as healthy, dry, degraded catalyst, and inert gas build-up. Independent component analysis and principal component analysis are investigated for preprocessing. An automotive style fuel cell model is developed to generate data for these purposes. Since automotive applications have limited computational power, a system that minimizes the number of inputs and computational complexity is preferred.</p>

<p> The objective of this work is to evaluate thoracic injuries for restrained occupants in far-side rollover and to propose a dynamic rollover test device. Most rollover studies have been driven by litigation and mainly focused on head and spinal injuries, while thoracic injuries, which correspond to one third of belted rollover injuries, have not been fully addressed. </p><p> In 2009, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) updated the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 216, which specifies a quasi-static test procedure. The rule was amended to double the strength-to-weight ratio (SWR) requirement from 1.5 to 3.0 on both sides of the vehicle, when tested sequentially. Most vehicles must meet the upgraded requirements by September 1, 2015. Ejection mitigation was addressed by component testing, as mandated in FMVSS No. 226. This regulation is currently being phased in and all manufacturers should fully comply by September 1, 2017. It should be noted that there is no regulation that requires the test of a complete vehicle in a rollover crash. </p><p> These federal regulation upgrades will affect the roof strength and ejection mitigation in current and future vehicles. Such changes are expected to reduce roof crush, and (partial/full) ejections, but may not address the vast majority of thoracic injuries. </p><p> The focus of this research is first to provide an understanding of the variations of different initial conditions on vehicle damage patterns, especially those that have been associated with thoracic injuries. The vehicle lateral speed, the roll rate, the initial position at roof-to-ground contact (different yaw, pitch, and roll angles), and the vehicle drop height variables were investigated for extended simulation times (2.5 seconds, up to 4 quarter-turn rollover). Subsequently, the Hybrid III 50^th percentile male anthropomorphic test device (ATD), which incorporated chest force measurements, was used in the rollover simulations. Finally, the Total Human Model for Safety (THUMS) FE model was used to investigate the potential of using a complex humanlike dummy in rollover simulations. </p><p> The simulations showed that vehicle rollover is influenced by many initial condition parameters and vehicle characteristics (roof structure design, shape, and strength). These parameters and characteristics affect the vehicle kinematics and roof deformation during the rollover crash. For some initial conditions, it was found that a vehicle landing on its wheel at the 4^th quarter-turn may cause inboard chest injury due to contact with the center console. Additionally, the chest may be dynamically loaded by the seatbelt, seat back and other interior components in the vehicle, sometimes simultaneously, producing highly complex loading. </p><p> After reviewing existing quasi-static and dynamic rollover test devices, and assessing full-scale research tests and rollover simulations, a proposed dynamic Guided Rollover Test (GRT) device is presented. The GRT device enables a test vehicle to behave in a fashion similar to a real-life rollover, exposing the (dummy) occupant to realistic kinematics and placing the dummy in the correct location prior to the start of the rollover, loading the roof structure dynamically, and assessing the full- and partial-ejection and injuries (including thoracic injuries) of the occupants. The GRT device subjects vehicles to repeatable initial conditions using a maneuver of a forward motion followed by a gradually increasing curvature sufficient to roll most vehicles. The test vehicle is carried on a cart that follows a guided track, which eliminates the influence of vehicle and road characteristics such as tire properties or road-surface friction during rollover initiation. The vehicle is then subjected to its own roll characteristics that define the dynamics and consequently the roof-to-ground contact. </p><p> The use of finite element vehicle and dummy models in the full-scale rollover simulations proved to be valuable in breaking through the stagnation in rollover research. One thoracic injury mode was found and many potential injuries were shown to be possible. Additionally, the proposed rollover test device and all-inclusive rollover rating system would subject vehicles to similar test initial conditions and facilitate dynamic evaluation and comparison. </p>

Thèse (M.Sc.A.)--Université de Sherbrooke (Canada), 2007. / Titre de l'écran-titre (visionné le 1 février 2007). In ProQuest dissertations and theses. Publié aussi en version papier.

<p>Ogden, Jerry Scott (PhD, Engineering and Applied Sciences) Generalized Deformation and Total Velocity Change Analysis System of Equations (G-DaTADeltaV?) Thesis directed by Professor Bruce Janson ABSTRACT Current methods for analyzing motor vehicle deformation utilize a force-deflection analysis for determining deformation work energy, which relies on vehicle-specific structural stiffness coefficients determined from full-scale impact testing. While the current database is quite extensive for frontal stiffness values for passenger cars and many light trucks, vans and SUVs from the 1970?s up to modern day, the database is devoid of specific crash tests needed for deformation analysis of rear and/or side structures of many vehicles. Additionally, there exists very few structural stiffness coefficients for heavy commercial vehicles, buses, recreational vehicles, heavy equipment or motorcycles necessary for application with the current force-deflection analysis methods. The primary goal of this research is to develop an accurate, reliable and broadly applicable deformation analysis method that requires the structural stiffness coefficients for only one collision involved vehicle. The developed methodology expands the application of deformation analysis to include unconventional vehicles and other objects and surfaces not supported by the current structural stiffness coefficient database. The G-DaTADeltaV? System of Equations incorporates linear and rotational effects, as well as impact restitution resulting from conservative forces acting during a given collision impulse. Additionally, the G-DaTADeltaV? System of Equations accounts for tire-ground forces and inter-vehicular friction, non-conservative force contributions acting on the collision system that are commonly present during offset and oblique non-central collision configurations. Correlation and descriptive statistics, as well as the raw analysis results, indicate a highly reliable and significantly improved degree of precision and accuracy achieved through the application of the G-DaTADeltaV? System of Equations when determining vehicular total velocity changes for oblique and offset non-central impacts. The form and content of this abstract are approved. I recommend its publication. Approved: Bruce Janson