Pedestrian impact: baseline and preliminary concepts evaluation, volume II - technical discussion. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.

Weight reduction potential of automobiles and light truck. 1980 summary source document. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Office of Research and Development, Washington, D.C.

Proposed rear view mirror characteristics and costs. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.

Pedestrian impact: baseline and preliminary concepts evaluation, volume I - summary. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.

Light duty truck weight reduction evaluation. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Office of Research and Development, Washington, D.C.

San Diego wheelchair accessible bus study. Interim report.

Urban Mass Transportation Administration, Washington, D.C.

Guidelines for desing and evaluation of human factors aspects of automated guideway transit systems. Final report.

Urban Mass Transportation Administration, Washington, D.C.

Potential of spark ignition engine, 1979 summary source document. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Office of Research and Development, Washington, D.C.

Potential of diesel engine, 1979 summary source document. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Office of Research and Development, Washington, D.C.

Potential of spark ignition and diesel engines, engine catalog and performance analysis. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Office of Research and Development, Washington, D.C.

The environment of Titan (1975).

At head of title: NASA space vehicle design criteria (environment).

Solid propellant selection and characterization.

At head of title: NASA space vehicle design criteria (chemical propulsion)

Thermobonded Fabrics

In 2009 Avella created a series of innovative fabrics for the Yves St Laurent (YSL) collection, deploying techniques from vehicle engineering to generate new materials for a range of garments. Studying the bonding of layers of material in ceramic plate thermobonding technology, Avella conducted a series of experiments with textiles such as flannel, silk and synthetics, and material such as leather, layered with polyamide foam and textile substrate to create new, textured and insulating fabrics with beautiful surfaces and interesting forms. The lightweight properties of the foam enabled the maximum insulation/weight ratio, and the panel moulding technology brought new forms of draping prêt-a-porter fashion design. Exclusive to YSL, this technique was patented and then shown at the Premiere Vision textiles trade fair in 2010. Much documented in specialist journals this innovation also breached the trade-culture barrier and was reported and documented in mainstream newspapers (New York Herald Tribune). Avella’s background in textile workshop studio experimentation at the RCA brought to YSL textiles research for manufacture, the innovative collaboration between fashion couture and engineering laboratory experiments from vehicle design.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF EFFICIENCY AND OPERATING CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTOMOTIVE POWERTRAIN ARCHITECTURES THROUGH CHASSIS DYNAMOMETER TESTING

The thesis "COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF EFFICIENCY AND OPERATING CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTOMOTIVE POWERTRAIN ARCHITECTURES THROUGH CHASSIS DYNAMOMETER TESTING" was completed through a collaborative partnership between Michigan Technological University and Argonne National Laboratory under a contractual agreement titled "Advanced Vehicle Characterization at Argonne National Laboratory". The goal of this project was to investigate, understand and document the performance and operational strategy of several modern passenger vehicles of various architectures. The vehicles were chosen to represent several popular engine and transmission architectures and were instrumented to allow for data collection to facilitate comparative analysis. In order to ensure repeatability and reliability during testing, each vehicle was tested over a series of identical drive cycles in a controlled environment utilizing a vehicle chassis dynamometer. Where possible, instrumentation was preserved between vehicles to ensure robust data collection. The efficiency and fuel economy performance of the vehicles was studied. In addition, the powertrain utilization strategies, significant energy loss sources, tailpipe emissions, combustion characteristics, and cold start behavior were also explored in detail. It was concluded that each vehicle realizes different strengths and suffers from different limitations in the course of their attempts to maximize efficiency and fuel economy. In addition, it was observed that each vehicle regardless of architecture exhibits significant energy losses and difficulties in cold start operation that can be further improved with advancing technology. It is clear that advanced engine technologies and driveline technologies are complimentary aspects of vehicle design that must be utilized together for best efficiency improvements. Finally, it was concluded that advanced technology vehicles do not come without associated cost; the complexity of the powertrains and lifecycle costs must be considered to understand the full impact of advanced vehicle technology.

Design of a static thruster for microair vehicle rotorcraft

This paper presents a case study of a design for a complete microair vehicle thruster. Fixed-pitch small-scale rotors, brushless motors, lithium-polymer cells, and embedded control are combined to produce a mechanically simple, high-performance thruster with potentially high reliability. The custom rotor design requires a balance between manufacturing simplicity and rigidity of a blade versus its aerodynamic performance. An iterative steady-state aeroelastic simulator is used for holistic blade design. The aerodynamic load disturbances of the rotor-motor system in normal conditions are experimentally characterized. The motors require fast dynamic response for authoritative vehicle flight control. We detail a dynamic compensator that achieves satisfactory closed-loop response time. The experimental rotor-motor plant displayed satisfactory thrust performance and dynamic response.