Analysis of the Operating Costs of Passenger Cars Declared by Vehicles' Manufacturers and Obtained by Users

Every year, there are more and more cars on the roads that cause pollution. To reduce it, conventional vehicles have started to be replaced by electric and hybrid vehicles. Therefore, the average fuel/energy consumption of electric, hybrid, spark ignition and self-ignition vehicles over a test distance of 100 km was investigated. The test results were then compared to the manufacturer's data and the average difference between the manufacturer's data and the test data is shown. The largest average difference in fuel consumption between the manufacturer's data and the test data was observed for hybrid vehicles (over 230 %) and the smallest for electric vehicles (less than 10 %) and spark ignition vehicles (almost 18 %). Considering costs, the largest difference between manufacturer's data and test data is observed, as in the previous case, in electric vehicles (0.25 €) and the largest in hybrid vehicles (almost 6 € per 100 kilometers driven).

Resilience Assessment of a Twin-Tube Motorway Tunnel in the Event of a Traffic Accident or Fire in a Tube

We have developed a traffic simulation model to quantitatively assess the resilience of a twin-tube motorway tunnel in the event of traffic accident or fire occurring within a tube. The motorway section containing the tunnel was investigated for different possible scenarios including its partial or complete closure. The functionality of the road infrastructure, in the case of an accident in one of the two tubes (each tube presents two lanes with unidirectional traffic under ordinary conditions), was assumed to be recovered both by using the remaining undisrupted lane of the tube interested by the disruptive event (only one lane is closed) and reorganizing the traffic flow by utilizing the adjacent tube for bi-directional traffic (both lanes are closed). The effects of an alternative itinerary individualized in the corresponding open road network were also examined. The level of functionality of the system during the period in which the tube is partially or completely closed was computed as the ratio between the average travel time required to reach a given destination from a specific origin before and after the occurrence of the disruptive event. The resilience metrics were assumed to be resilience loss, recovery speed, and resilience index. The best scenario was found to be the partial closure of the tube in contrast to the complete one. However, in order to contain the negative effects on the functionality of the motorway section due to the complete closure of the tube, it is worth highlighting how the traffic by-pass before the entrance portal of the closed tube should be open in a very short time by the tunnel management team to allow for the quick use of the adjacent tube for bi-directional traffic. An additional improvement, with reference exclusively to passenger cars traveling through the adjacent unblocked tube, might be obtained by activating the variable message signs, located at a sufficient distance from the motorway junction before the entrance portal of the closed tube, in order to suggest an alternative route to heavy good vehicles (HGVs) only. Whereas, when the alternative itinerary is used by all vehicles traveling towards the blocked tube (i.e., both passenger cars and HGVs), this redirectioning of the motorway traffic flow was found to be characterized by an excessive travel time, with it therefore not being advisable. The results obtained might be useful as a decision-making support tool aimed at improving the resilience of twin-tube tunnels.

VEHICLE AIR CONDITIONER (VAC) CONTROL SYSTEM BASED ON PASSENGER COMFORT: A PROOF OF CONCEPT

The air conditioning system (AC) in passenger cars requires precise control to provide a comfortable and healthy driving. In an AC system with limited manual control, the driver has to repeatedly change the setting to improve comfort. This problem may be overcome by implementing an automatic control system to maintain cabin temperature and humidity to meet passenger's thermal comfort. Therefore, this paper presents the development of a laboratory-scale prototype air conditioning control system to regulate temperature, humidity and air circulation in the cabin. The experimental results show that the control system is able to control air temperature in the range of 21 °C to 23 °C and cabin air humidity between 40% to 60% in various simulated environmental conditions which indicate acceptance for comfort and health standards in the vehicle. In conclusion, this method can be applied to older vehicles with reasonable modifications. ABSTRAK: Sistem penyejuk udara (AC) pada kenderaan penumpang memerlukan ketepatan kawalan bagi menyediakan keselesaan dan kesejahteraan pemanduan. Melalui sistem AC dengan kawalan manual terhad, pemandu perlu berulang kali mengubah penyesuaian latar bagi meningkatkan keselesaan. Masalah ini dapat diatasi dengan menerapkan sistem kawalan automatik bagi menjaga suhu dan kelembapan kabin agar memenuhi keselesaan suhu penumpang. Oleh itu, kajian ini merupakan pembangunan prototaip sistem kawalan AC skala laboratari bagi mengawal suhu, kelembapan dan peredaran udara dalam kabin. Hasil eksperimen menunjukkan sistem kawalan ini mampu mengendali suhu udara pada kitaran 21 °C hingga 23 °C dan kelembaban udara kabin antara 40% hingga 60% pada pelbagai keadaan persekitaran simulasi yang menunjukkan penerimaan standard keselesaan dan kesejahteraan kenderaan. Sebagai kesimpulan, cara ini dapat diaplikasi pada kenderaan lama dengan modifikasi bersesuaian.

Construction of the graph model for determining an ecological compatibility of a transportation process

Uncertainty of data during environmental monitoring prevents with confidently and objectively assessing the current condition of the environment, the influence of factors affecting the fuel consumption of vehicles during operation. In addition, it creates a serious problem in assessing the dynamics of this condition, especially when it comes to relatively small levels of pollution that are on the verge of the sensitivity of systems and devices in the car. It is precisely these tasks that include the determination of atmospheric pollution by emissions from road transport in conditions of variable weather and climatic conditions, carrying out routine maintenance, changing a configuration of an engine or transmission. The article discusses: a) factors related to the characteristics and vehicle systems, with the maintenance of vehicles. This category focuses on fuel consumption and CO2 emissions, which depend on the technical and operational characteristics of the vehicle, its weight and aerodynamics, tires and auxiliary systems, the quality and timeliness of maintenance and repairs; b) factors related to the environment and traffic conditions (weather conditions, road morphology and traffic conditions); c) factors related to a driver of a vehicle (driver qualifications, driving style). Optimization of factors related to vehicle systems and their characteristics has been performed; by using fuel of optimum quality and driving efficiently, you can achieve savings in fuel (financial) consumption and CO2 emissions. The article proposes the solution to a complex problem of managing the transport process while minimizing fuel consumption and CO2 emissions from passenger cars, depending on the road and climatic conditions and the driver's qualifications, based on the theory of fuzzy sets. This approach made it possible to largely compensate for the lack of objective information about the process due to its uncertainty by subjective expert data.

Аlgorithmization of the knowledge base in service of passenger cars

The article considers the architecture of conceptual modeling of the knowledge base, which creates a model of the subject area in the form of many concepts and relationships between them. This approach is based on the concept of a mobile software agent, which is implemented and functions as an independent specialized computer program or an element of artificial intelligence. Ensuring the use of subject area knowledge has become one of the driving forces of the recent surge in the study of artificial intelligence. For example, for models of many different subject areas it is necessary to formulate the concept of time. This representation includes the concepts of time intervals, time points, relative measures of time, etc. If one group of scientists develops a detailed knowledge base, others can simply reuse it in their subject areas using their own database. Creating explicit assumptions in the subject area, which underlie the implementation, makes it easy to change the assumptions when changing our knowledge of the subject area. The process of conceptualization of TO and P, first of all, involves the development of databases in research areas for the formalization and systematization of knowledge about the characteristics of this area of entities and phenomena. That is, the use of concepts in the field of maintenance in a consistent manner in relation to theories of knowledge. Ultimately, the paper updated mathematical modeling, algorithmization and implementation of intelligent systems in the field of maintenance, which will help automate the process of diagnosis and inspection of all car systems, facilitate fault prevention and improve the maintenance process and modernize the maintenance system itself. The approach of algorithmization of the base of knowledge of a condition of the car in each moment of time considered in work gives the chance to reduce time of stay of the car in the service center and to reduce considerably expenses for passing of MOT at service of cars.

Electric or Internal Combustion Engines for Passenger Cars? – Environmental and Economic Aspects

The paper is focused on fuels, their users - engines and the end-user, the vehicles, from an environmental and economic point of view. The basic characteristics of potential fuels for internal combustion engines, as well as possible sources of electricity, are analysed. A comparative analysis of characteristics of vehicle propulsion with gasoline, diesel fuel, compressed natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas and electricity was performed. The research has shown that the application of vehicles with an electric motor is ecologically justified only in cases of obtaining electricity in an environmentally friendly way and that in other cases there is no profit in an ecological sense. From an economic point of view, if there were no subsidies to manufacturers and buyers of electric cars, they would not be competitive with internal combustion engines now. Within the research, potential solutions for reducing air pollution and improving the quality of life in cities have been proposed.

Computational Fluid Dynamic Analysis of Conceptual 3D Car Model

From past decades, people are giving more attention to conservation of the fuels. The increasing number of passenger cars have increased the amount of traffic which directly impacts pollution and traffic congestion. Manufacturers are indulged into making lightweight and performance efficient automobiles. Implementation of different designs and materials has been in practice since ages. We need smaller vehicle designs for personal transport and electric vehicles to tackle the raising problems. In future designs, vehicles will be efficient enough to save more fuel and also the traffic problems may be solved. But for the design optimizations and experiments we need different analyses to be performed, one of which is aerodynamic analysis. In this paper a CFD analysis is done to check the aerodynamic performance of a proposed car design. The car has been designed using Onshape modeling software and analyzed in Simscale software. The car is subjected to different vehicle speeds and the results of drag coefficients and pressure plots are shown. Keywords: Design and analysis of a vehicle, CFD analysis, Aerodynamic analysis, 3D modelling, Drag coefficient, Pressure plot, Concept car, Performance Optimization.