Waste Engine Heat and Fuel Economy

By Dalano Bass

     Two teams from Chrysler and the center for automotive research from Ohio State have developed a new approach to maximizing drivetrain efficiency and reducing fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. They determined how to capture and distribute that waste heat energy to the transmission and engine oils on demand. Their plan is to use the waste heat energy produced in the combustion engines. Less torque will be required due to temperature oils viscosity at higher temperatures. For this concept to work, a new software, transmission heat exchanger, and plumbing must be in place. This allows operation of transmissions and engines at higher mechanical efficiencies. To improve fuel economy, automakers needed to select optimal coolant-circuit architectures, heat exchangers, and flow-control devices. These devices will help warmup the drivetrain oils and run at a slightly higher temperature without hydraulic power.

Successfully completed, significant fuel savings are a result. The higher oil temperatures and shorter warm up time turned into a 4% increase in fuel economy. The largest efficiency occurred when starting from a cold start. This is system is used in Europe unfortunately, it is not on the market. Chrysler is interested in this approach to use in newer model vehicles as well as be incorporated into manufactured powertrains.

For the full article and future reporting visit.

https://www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/automotive/using-waste-engine-heat-in-automobile-engines

The Future of Autonomous Cars

By Ryan Ellis

Its kind of scary to think that driverless cars, an idea that showed up in the works of sci-fi movies made decades ago is now a reality. Many companies have experimented in the realm of autonomous vehichles, even companies that don't necessarily make automobiles. Driverless cars have a lot of potential to make the next step forward in the future of safe transportation.

Autonomous cars have connections close to Michigan, in fact a ten-million dollar testing facility was recently opened Ann Arbor( unfortunately it was built on the campus of the University of Michigan - GO GREEN) Anyways, more than twelve companies such as Google, Toyota, and GM all began testing at the new facility in July of 2015. This new proving ground, named Mcity, houses many different terrain and real world scenarios where self driving cars are put to the test. Effectively Mcity, as the name somewhat implies, is a miniature city! Complete with traffic signs, construction cones, and even pot-holes ( Burden, Para. 2)

The ultimate goal of implementing automated cars on the real roads is simple: increase driver safety and decrease the number of casualties due to accidents. I think the automotive industry is well on their way to achieving these goals within the next decade. Understandably, it will take some time for the public to see the benefits that autonomous cars have offer. But hopefully in the end people will come to see that driverless cars can offer great advantages if given the chance to prove themselves.

Source:
Burden, Melissa. "Driverless Car Testing Site Mcity Opens in Ann Arbor." Detroit News. Detroit       News, 21 July 2015. Web. 08 Oct. 2015.

Engineering Ethics

By Ryan Loveland:

Continuing on what Dalano said in the post before, Ethics is an important thing when it comes to mechanical engineering. Last summer I worked at an automotive safety supplier. They made products like airbags, seat belts ect. If their product fails it can cause deaths or severely injure someone. Which is why it is so important for the engineers there to follow a strict code of ethics.

A competitor of ours produced airbags for many big three vehicles and others brands, my car included. The companies poor ethics in their engineering lead to faults in the product later down the road. The engineers decided to release and produce a product before it was properly tested and validated. And now there are over 30 million vehicles being recalled. This not only cost the company millions of dollars, but people are getting hurt due to the faulty airbags they made. If the engineers stuck with a solid code of ethics they could have avoided the whole situation.

People trust their lives to cars, planes ect. produced by engineers, every day. This is why a very strict code of ethics is needed for every engineer to keep people safe.

Read all about it here

Prompt #2 Defining Ethics

By Dalano Bass

Every field contains a code of ethics, in which describes and or outlines the values of the organization, how to solve and approach problems, and their ethical principles based upon their core values. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) labels our code of ethics as the following:

• Engineers uphold and advance the integrity, honor, and dignity of the Engineering profession by: I. Using their knowledge and skill for the enhancement of human welfare;
•  II. Being honest and impartial, and serving with fidelity the public, their employers and clients; and 
• III. Striving to increase the competence and prestige of the engineering profession.

Mechanical engineers code of ethics is almost a direct representation of myself. Our first goal is to better the overall well-being of others, which I am all for. However, beyond the field these codes are definitely being honored. With new designs concepts arising almost every day from mechanical engineers, we are constantly honoring our code in various ways. As a result, more light is being shed on the field of Mechanical Engineering. Most individuals do not realize how broad the field of Mechanical Engineering actually is. Mechanical engineers are mainly perceived as engineers who construct machine prototypes and have an unbelievable amount of math knowledge under their belts. In actuality, the mechanical engineering field is quite a broad major with a number of possibilities that to continues to grow.

For the complete list of ethics visit:
http://personal.egr.uri.edu/asme/documents/Code%20of%20Ethics.pdf

Mechanical Hippotherapy

By Ryan Ellis

(Above) The group of mechanical engineers from 

Baylor university work on the Mechanical Horse

"Hippo therapy: The incorporation of equine movement by physical therapy, occupational therapy, or speech language pathology professionals in treatment."

Contrary to what many people believe, Mechanical engineering is not just limited to Automobiles and machines. Mechanical Engineering varies vastly and can be incorporated into many different fields. One such example is back in 2009 when engineering students at Baylor university began constructing a completely Mechanical Horse.

Having over a year of experience working with horses, I have first hand knowledge of the benefits that horse back riding provides to individuals. However, with the benefits comes limitations and complications. When I worked at a horse training facility, one of the first problems that new riders faced was the initial mounting of the horse. The importance of the mechanical engineering profession is expressed very well in this article. People who would otherwise not be able to experience the benefits of riding a horse do to physical limitations are now given the chance due to a team of mechanical engineers.

"American Hippotherapy Association, Inc." American Hippotherapy Association Inc. Web 5 Oct. 2015.

Baylor University. "Advanced Mechanical Horse Built For Therapy." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 8 May 2009. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090507184757.htm>.

Cracking 1,000 mph

By Ryan Loveland and Ryan Ellis

(Bloodhound SSC Vehicle)

The team of engineers behind Bloodhound SSC have just created a vehicle they claim will reach speeds of over 1,000 mph. That means it can drive a mile in less than 4 seconds."Measuring 13.5 meters in length and weighing 7.5 tons, the car's dual rocket and jet engines will produce the equivalent of 135,000bhp of thrust" (Condliffe). All that power is made from a rocket engine, a jet engine, and a supercharged Jaguar V8 engine. The current land speed record is 763 mph, set by the Thrust SSC vehicle and the engineers behind it. But reaching 1,000 means breaking the sound barrier. This can cause many new problems for the engineers to face such as keeping the vehicle on the ground, allowing the car to breathe, and keeping the wheels on. 
Read more about the car here, or watch a cool video about it.

Info from: http://gizmodo.com/inside-the-engineering-of-the-worlds-first-1-000mph-car-1732795926

Prompt # 8 : At the Heart of Engineering

By Ryan Ellis

During my time as a dual enrollee with a a local community college, I took pre engineering classes that allowed me to explore my curiosity within my field. As a final project for Computer Aided Design, I was instructed to find some object that was related to Mechanical Engineering and replicate it in Creo (a commercial CAD software package.) I decided to take the piston out of an old push lawnmower my dad had left sitting around in the garage.

Before starting the process of taking the engine apart, I first read up on online about the basic parts of small engines so I had a better understanding of what I was looking at when I actually took it apart. I looked at everything from schematics in Google Images to 3D animations of engines in operation on Youtube.

Nothing quite compares to actually getting your hands on the physical parts, learning how they go together and work with each other. Taking that engine apart with my own hands gave me a new perspective on my field of study. Book work and reading about the concepts of your field are important, but nothing compares to first hand experience. There are misconceptions that engineers are always busy with mathematics and physics (two subjects that have connotations with reading a lot textbooks) Although that is sometimes true, it is not the heart of engineering. For me, the soul of being an engineer is finding out how things work. Working with objects, machines, tools, essentially anything with moving parts.

To me, being a mechanical engineer means understanding. It means knowing the purpose of something in order to further your own knowledge of that thing, what ever it may be.