Acausal Powertrain Modelling with Application to Model-based Powertrain Control

The automotive industry has long been searching for efficient ways to improve vehicle performance such as drivability, fuel consumption, and emissions. Researchers in the automotive industry have tried to develop methods to improve fuel consumption and reduce the emission gases of a vehicle, while satisfying drivability and ride comfort issues. Today, by developing computer/software technologies, automotive manufacturers are moving more and more towards modelling a real component (prototype) in a software domain (virtual prototype). For instance, modelling the components of a vehicle's powertrain (driveline) in the software domain helps the designers to iterate the model for different operating conditions and scenarios to obtain better performance without any cost of making a real prototype. The objective of this research is to develop and validate physics-based powertrain models with sufficient fidelity to be useful to the automotive industry for rapid prototyping. Developing a physics-based powertrain model that can accurately simulate real phenomenon in the powertrain components is of great importance. For instance, a high-fidelity simulation of the combustion phenomenon in the internal combustion (IC) engine with detailed physical and chemical reactions can be used as a virtual prototype to estimate physical prototype characteristics in a shorter time than it would take to build a physical prototype. Therefore, the powertrain design can be explored and validated virtually in the software domain to reduce the cost and time of product development. The main focus of this thesis is on development of an internal combustion engine model, four-cylinder spark ignition engine, and a hydrodynamic torque converter model. Then, the models are integrated along with the rest of a powertrain's components (e.g. vehicle longitudinal dynamics model) through acausal connections, which represents a more feasible physics-based powertrain model for model-based control design. The powertrain model can be operated at almost all operating conditions (e.g. wide range of the engine speeds and loads), and is able to capture some transient behaviour of the powertrain as well as the steady state response. Moreover, the parametric formulation of each component in the proposed powertrain model makes the model more efficient to simulate different types of powertrain (e.g. for a passenger car or truck)

Using Adaptive Pole Placement Control Strategy for Active Steering Safety System

This paper studies the design of an adaptive control strategy to tune an active steering system for better drivability and maneuverability. In the first step, adaptive control strategy is applied to estimate the uncertain parameters on-line (e.g. cornering stiffness), then the estimated parameters are fed into the pole placement controller to generate corrective feedback gain to improve the steering system dynamic's characteristics. The simulations are evaluated for three types of road conditions (dry, wet, and icy), and the performance of the adaptive pole placement control (APPC) are compared with pole placement control (PPC) and a passive system. The results show that the APPC strategy significantly improves the yaw rate and side slip angle of a bicycle plant model

Synthesis of hybridized benzylthio-1,3,4-thiadiazol-isatin derivatives and in vitro cytotoxicity evaluation

Introduction: In this research synthesis of hybridized benzylthio-thiadiazol-isatin derivatives has been reported and then the effects of the synthesized compounds were  investigated on cancer cell lines and molecular docking was also studied on proposed receptor. Methods and Results: This project was done in 2 steps that includes the synthesis of new hybrids of thiadiazole-isatin derivatives and characterized by various spectroscopy methods such as "Mass spectroscopy, Infrared spectroscopy, and 1H NMR". To study cytotoxic effects of the compounds, different concentrations of synthesized derivatives were  prepared and tested on the three rank 7 cellular MCF-7 "breast cancer", PC3 "Prostate carcinoma", and SKNMC "Norobelastoma". The method used was MTT that after various stages of the solution and added MTT, the color was measured by the producted formazan during measurements suitable wave. The color ratio was  as equal as  the number of living cells. For comparing the  cytotoxicity we  used doxorubicin as control drug. Conclusions: The most potent of the compounds were 3b, 4c, and 4d against MCF7 cell line, 3b, 4h against PC3 cell line, and 3b,4f, and 4h against SKNMC cell line which seems to be the best ones relative to the control drug. Also we found that treatment with 3b led to  decrease in IC50 and significantly increased cytotoxicity effects of the compound in PC3, SKNMC and MCF7 cells lines

Parametric Importance Analysis and Design Optimization of a Torque Converter Model Using Sensitivity Information

Replicated with permission by SAE Copyright © 2017 SAE International. Further distribution of this material is not permitted without prior permission from SAE.Torque converters are used as coupling devices in automobile powertrains involving automatic transmissions. Efficient modeling of torque converters capturing various modes of operation is important for powertrain design and simulation, (Hroval and Tobler 1, Ishihara and Emori 2) optimization and control applications. Models of torque converters are available in various commercial simulation packages, Hadi et. al. 3. The information about the effect of model parameters on torque converter performance is valuable for any design operation. In this paper, a symbolic sensitivity analysis of a torque converter model will be presented. Direct differentiation (Serban and Freeman 4) is used to generate the sensitivity equations which results in equations in symbolic form. By solving the sensitivity equations, the effect of a perturbation of the model parameters on the behavior of the system is determined. A parametric importance analysis is performed on the model: the model parameters are arranged according to their effect on the amount loss of energy during the operation of the torque converter. The radii of the pump, turbine and stator, the density of the hydraulic fluid and the exit angle of the vanes of the stator were found to have the most significant effects on the model. Using the sensitivity information, a design optimization problem is defined and solved to obtain a set of parameter values that minimizes the energy lost during the torque converter operation.Financial support for this work has been provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Toyota, and Maplesoft

Synthesis and investigation of antioxidant activities of 2-benzylidene-3-coumaranones

      A number of 6-hydroxy-2-benzylidene-3-coumaranones were synthesized from condensation of 6-hydroxy-3-coumaranone with appropriate aldehydes and were evaluated for their antioxidant activities. The antioxidant activity was assessed using two methods, including, 1,1-biphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging, and reducing power assays. Some of the benzylidene coumaranones showed antioxidant activity more than Trolox as reference antioxidant

Math-based spark ignition engine modelling including emission prediction for control applications

Originally published by Inderscience: Asl, H. A., Fraser, R. A., & McPhee, J. (2015). Math-based spark ignition engine modelling including emission prediction for control applications. International Journal of Vehicle Systems Modelling and Testing, 10(2), 148. doi:10.1504/ijvsmt.2015.068977A complete spark ignition (SI) engine model is a multi-domain model including fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, combustion, electrical, and mechanical sub-models. The complexity of these models depends on the type of analysis used for model development, which may vary from highly detailed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis (multi-dimensional model) to simpler data-based analysis in which the data is obtained from experiments (zero-dimensional model). The main objective of our research is to develop a math-based SI engine model for control application and real time simulation. The model must be accurate enough to capture the combustion characteristics (e.g., combustion temperature) and predict emission gases, while being fast enough for real time simulation purposes. In this paper, a physics-based model of an SI engine is presented which consists of different sub-models including: throttle body and manifold model, four-stroke quasi-dimensional thermodynamic model of gas exchange and power cycles, two-zone combustion and flame propagation model, emission gases model based on the chemical kinetics equations, and mechanical torque model. Moreover, part of the simulation results is validated against the GT-Power simulation results. The math-based model is created in the MapleSim environment. The symbolic nature of MapleSim significantly shortens the simulation time and also enables parametric sensitivity analysis

Chemometrical-electrochemical investigation for comparing inhibitory effects of quercetin and its sulfonamide derivative on human carbonic anhydrase II: Theoretical and experimental evidence

This paper reports results of a valuable study on investigation of inhibitory effects of the sulfonamide derivative of quercetin (QD) on human carbonic anhydrase II (CA-II) by electrochemical and chemometrical approaches. To achieve this goal, a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) was chosen as the sensing platform and different electrochemical techniques such as cyclic voltammetry (CV), differential pulse voltammetry (DPV), linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) were used to investigate and comparing inhibitory effects of quercetin (Q) and QD on CA-II. By the use of EQUISPEC, SPECFIT, SQUAD and REACTLAB as efficient hard-modeling algorithms, bindings of Q and QD with CA-II were investigated and the results confirmed that the QD inhibited the CA-II stronger than Q suggesting a highly relevant role of QD's-SO2NH2 group in inhibiting activity and also was confirmed by docking studies. Finally, a novel EIS technique based on interaction of Q and CA-II was developed for sensitive electroanalytical determination of CA-II and in this section of our study, the sensitivity of the developed electroanalytical methodology was improved by the modification of the GCE was with multi-walled carbon nanotubes-ionic liquid.Fil: Khodarahmi, Reza. Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences; IránFil: Khateri, Shaya. Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences; IránFil: Adibi, Hadi. Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences; IránFil: Nasirian, Vahid. State University of Louisiana; Estados UnidosFil: Hedayati, Mehdi. Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences; IránFil: Faramarzi, Elahe. Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences; IránFil: Soleimani, Shokoufeh. Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences; IránFil: Goicoechea, Hector Casimiro. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Bioquímica y Ciencias Biológicas. Laboratorio de Desarrollo Analítico y Quimiometría; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste; ArgentinaFil: Jalalvand, Ali Reza. Kermanshah University Of Medical Sciences; Irá

Depression, anxiety and stress, comorbidity evaluation among a large sample of general adults: results from SEPAHAN study

Depression, anxiety and stress are common psychological disorders (PDs). This study aimed to assess the odds of co-occurrence of mentioned PDs in total sample and different levels of socio-demographic characteristics, specifically among a large sample of general adults. In a cross-sectional, community-based study conducted among 4763 Iranian adults, depression and anxiety were assessed with Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and stress with General Health Questionnaire (GHQ). The loglinear analysis was applied to investigate their comorbidities. Based on selected models with pair-comorbidity of anxiety with stress, depression with stress, and anxiety with depression, the results showed the odds of comorbidity between anxiety and depression (odds ratio (OR) =12.29, 95%CI: 9.58-15.80), depression and stress (OR = 7.80, 95%CI: 6.55-10.18), and stress and anxiety (OR = 4.62, 95%CI: 3.71-5.75). Also, ORs of pair-comorbidities were the same, except between stress and anxiety for men compared to women (adjusted-OR = 6.47, 95%CI: 4.44-9.49 versus 3.85, 95%CI: 2.95-5.00) and comorbidity between stress and depression for the participants with lower than 40 years compared to others (adjusted-OR = 9.03, 95%CI: 7.17-11.36 versus 6.41, 95%CI: 4.90-8.41), p< 0.05. Stress comorbidity with depression was higher level than other pair-comorbidities. Obvious discrepancies were also observed in terms of ORs of pair-comorbidities between three mentioned disorders in different levels of SDCs

Preview active suspension design for convoy vehicles

Convoy vehicles, defined as individual vehicles traveling with close following distances on a specified path, have been recently the subject of research especially in military applications. Convoy vehicles are used to carry soldiers, weapons and army supplements. Military drivers are often young and inexperienced, and more prone to lose control of vehicles on rough terrain. In addition, Intelligent Vehicle Highway Systems with autonomous civilian vehicles travelling in platoons are an active research and experimentation topic. -- The idea of communicating dynamic responses between preceding and following vehicles, to improve the followers' ride comfort and handling, has been identified as a research need for convoy vehicle systems. -- This research implements a form of preview control to improve the vertical dynamics of convoy vehicles. An academic virtual convoy, composed of a lead vehicle with active suspension system, and a follower vehicle with preview-controlled active suspension, is developed in MATLAB and SIMULINK. Preview control gives a theoretical improvement over active control by further decreasing sprung mass acceleration (ride quality) and/or improving road holding. Quarter car models with two degrees of freedom (DOF) are employed for modeling and simulation. In contrast to conventional preview control with look-ahead sensors, the vertical response states of the lead vehicle are used to generate feed forward control gains in addition to feedback control gains for the preview controller of the follower vehicle. The results show improved ride comfort and road holding of the follower vehicle with the novel preview approach compared to a lead vehicle with active suspension. Moreover, the power demand for the follower vehicle suspension is much less than for the lead vehicle. Longitudinal dynamics of a convoy system, with five vehicles, are evaluated and an adaptive cruise control system is implemented to control the longitudinal aspects of the convoy such as relative space and velocity among vehicles. Future work will implement the state-based preview controller into such a convoy, with variations in following distance, to test the robustness of the method

Synthesis and enzyme-based evaluation of analogues L-tyrosine thiol carboxylic acid inhibitor of metallo-beta-lactamase IMP-1

The emergence of drug-resistant pathogenic bacteria is occurring due to the global overuse and misuse of beta-lactam antibiotics. Infections caused by some bacteria which secrete metallo-beta-lactamases (enzymes that inactivate beta-lactam antibiotics) are increasingly prevalent and have become a major worldwide threat to human health. These bacteria are resistant to beta-lactam antibiotics and MBL-inhibitor/beta-lactam antibiotic combination therapy can be a strategy to overcome this problem. So far, no clinically available inhibitors of metallo-beta-lactamases (MBLs) have been reported. In this study, L-benzyl tyrosine thiol carboxylic acid analogues (2a-2k) were synthesized after the study of computational simulation by adding of methyl, chloro, bromo and nitro groups to the benzyl ring for investigation of SAR analysis. Although the synthesized molecules 2a-k shows the potent inhibitory effects against metallo-beta-lactamase (IMP-1) with the range of K-ic values of 1.04-4.77 mu M, they are not as potent as the candidate inhibitor