Survey: Battery, Engine, Materials Are Top CAFE Techs
9/19/2012
A DuPont-sponsored survey has found that automakers are focused almost equally on improving battery performance, breakthroughs in combustion engine performance, and lighter materials. (Source: DuPont)
I, too, was intrigued by the Combustion Engine Breakthrough category. The main example DuPont gave is Ford's EcoBoost engine, which we've covered before, and it's not at all fairy-dust: http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1387&doc_id=234102 http://media.ford.com/images/10031/EcoBoost.pdf Then there are several slides in Chuck's slideshow yesterday that address engine improvements, such as slide 3 on Toyota's D-S4 engine, slide 6 on Chevy's Ecotec, slide 15 on Fiat's Multi-Air inline engine, slide 16 on engine active fuel management, and slides 8 and 11 on the GDI technique, which sounds to me like a real breakthrough at up to 30% consumption reduction potential.
TJ, if you look at the pie chart, you'll see that there's an Other category that comprises 4% of responses, as well as an Aerodynamics category at 1%, one (or both) of which may have included tire improvements. Whatever improvements they add apparently weren't statistically large enough, in the context of the others, to justify a separate category, at least in the minds of these respondents. That said, as you rightly point out there are many improvements shown in Chuck's slideshow yesterday that can be done, and that fall outside the big three categories in this study.
Lou, that balance between adding safety features and saving weight is top of mind for automotive engineers and the car companies in general, and for materials makers like DuPont, as well as sub-system makers like engine component companies, in particular. Chuck's slideshow yesterday shows a host of these: http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1366&doc_id=250882 Balancing all these tradeoffs requires the type of system-level thinking DuPont is using to develop new materials with its matrix structure, as Beth points out.
And is one of the easiest things to do. Any number of improvements (pressure sensors become standard, on-board compressors to maintain pressure) would immediately improve mileage.
Combustion Engine Breakthrough too much sounds like we're waiting for a genie to grant a wish.
One big trend in automobiles in the last few years has been enhanced safety. With stronger structures, and specific safety equipment such as air bags, we have become safer in the event of an accident. The downside is the weight added by all this safety equipment.
While in the 1970s I had a 1960s car that weighed only 1,400 pounds, there is nothing at that weight available now. With a heavy and very unsophiscated engine the car could get 40 MPG on the highway. Of course, it was not very safe.
So, while looking at ways to cut weight, it woulld be interesting to see if there are ways to use these new material features to enhance safety as well. I saw an artivle recently that made the comment that were going toward lighter cars, but that would probably compromise safety. Perhaps this new approach to designing materials will allow companies like DuPont to address both.
Looks like DuPoint's matrix strategy for materials development will enable it to leverage a lot of intellectual property and design innovative across various core platforms as opposed to reinventing the wheel for every separate endeavor. Great example of big picture, systems engineering thinking as opposed to a one-off strategy around lightweighting.
The 100-percent solar-powered Solar Impulse plane flies on a piloted, cross-country flight this summer over the US as a prelude to the longer, round-the-world flight by its successor aircraft planned for 2015.
GE Aviation expects to chop off about 25 percent of the total 3D printing time of metallic production components for its LEAP Turbofan engine, using in-process inspection. That's pretty amazing, considering how slow additive manufacturing (AM) build times usually are.
A $1,500, hand-operated, bench-model, plastic injection machine crowdsource-funded via Kickstarter can be used to mold small, quality, plastic parts inexpensively, on demand.
The federal government is launching competitions to kickstart three more manufacturing innovation institutes, including one focused on Lightweight and Modern Metals Manufacturing Innovation.
The airframe of Airbus's A350 XWB consists of a bigger proportion of carbon-fiber-reinforced composite structures than any other commercial jet to date: over 53 percent by weight.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
To save this item to your list of favorite Design News content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
If you found this interesting or useful, please use the links to the services below to share it with other readers. You will need a free account with each service to share an item via that service.
Tweet This
16 
