NAFEMS Americas and Digital Engineering (DE) teamed up (once again) to present CAASE, the (now Virtual) Conference on Advancing Analysis & Simulation in Engineering, on June 16-18, 2020!

CAASE20 brought together the leading visionaries, developers, and practitioners of CAE-related technologies in an open forum, unlike any other, to share experiences, discuss relevant trends, discover common themes, and explore future issues, including:
-What is the future for engineering analysis and simulation?
-Where will it lead us in the next decade?
-How can designers and engineers realize its full potential?
What are the business, technological, and human enablers that will take past successful developments to new levels in the next ten years?

Resource Abstract

Vehicle Energy Management (VEM) simulations play key role in prediction of System level energy performance and energy contribution of each subsystem during any event. Tire-road interaction plays crucial role in driving the actual power consumption of vehicle. This is so, due to dynamic behavior of tire material when each tread gets loaded (comes into contact with ground) and unloaded (loses contact with ground). The rolling resistance between tire-ground also directly affects fuel consumption of vehicle. Slight change in rolling resistance significantly impacts power consumption. Also, this makes virtual simulation deviate a lot from physical world. Thus, calculation of rolling resistance is very critical for good correlation. Rolling resistance depends on various factors such as load, vehicle velocity and ambient conditions. One of the conventional approaches to estimate the rolling resistance is by trial and error method. This paper proposes a scientific approach for calculation of rolling resistance coefficient for various off-road events. It is clear that the rate of tire tread being loaded and unloaded depends on forward vehicle velocity. Also, vertical weight on the tire directly impacts on the shape and size of contact patch area. Thus, rolling resistance being offered at high load is more. A new methodology has been developed to calculate ‘rolling resistance coefficient’ for various duty cycles in which vehicle forward velocity and vertical load are varying. This methodology has been virtually verified for field and transport events of an off-road vehicle and excellent correlation (around 90%) has been achieved with test data. Standardization of this process is a key milestone towards predicting performance of upcoming off-road machines for various terrains and vehicle system level parameters. This study is a step towards modeling real time vehicle dynamic phenomenon accurately and making sound design decisions based upon results achieved. Further scope of this study is to optimize hydraulic subsystems based upon subsystem level performance. This will lead to performance improvement at vehicle level significantly. With this method, huge cost involved in testing and efforts will be minimized with added advantage of reusability and modular architecture. Evaluation of various technological advances at subsystem level can be appropriately compared with available options using vehicle energy management thought process. Also, optimization objectives such as better gradeability, improved traction, reduced fuel consumption and emissions can be achieved with this methodology.