Modern diesel engines must simultaneously provide ultra-low emissions and world-class fuel economy. To meet these requirements, many new combustion strategies require that combustion occur in an oxygen-limited and/or very high EGR environment, both of which increase the tendency for particulate emissions and reduced burn-rate. The current study utilized an iterative combination of simulations and engine experiments to identify improved combustion system designs for future diesel engines. Additionally, success in reducing soot and improving burn rate in an oxygen-limited environment opens the door to new strategies for diesel combustion in the future.

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In this study, in order to investigate the fatigue characteristics of the spot welded joints using the high strength steel, fatigue tests were conducted and internal fatigue crack behavior around the spot area was observed in detail. Test results showed that spot welded joints had the low fatigue strength compared with the tensile strength of base metal and spot welded joints. Moreover, it was clarified spot welded joints used in this study require many cyclic loading to initiate the fatigue crack. Furthermore their fatigue crack propagation indicates the similar behavior in major part of life independently of the stress level.

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In Japan, a report has shown that being hurry is the greatest category of the driver mental states during car accidents. In this paper, we present the analysis and detection algorithm especially developed for hurry driving in several driving situations. The most effective driving feature in each situation is selected based on the comparative statistical analysis of the driver behavior in the normal and hurry driving conditions. It is found that the features that classify the hurry driving well in most situations are the time headway, the host vehicle velocity and the longitudinal acceleration. Through these features, the appropriate classification rules are determined, which allows us to later develop the hurry-driving detection algorithm based upon the driving-state transition model. The algorithm is then validated by offline simulations with collected driving data. The results clearly confirm the practicability and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

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We proposed a new detection method for a magnetostriction-type torque sensor based on the iteration of the periodic time difference, and showed the evaluation results of its application to the rotation torque measurement of a shaft. For practical use, however, it is essential to reduce the angular-dependent noise. Therefore, we next investigated making a uniform material surface for the noise reduction. In this paper, the experimental results of the improved sensor by making the material surface uniform are described. In addition, a sensor configuration that can reduce sensor drift and hysteresis is presented. As a result, it is shown that the angular-dependent noise and sensor drift can be decreased to less than 2 bits of digital output.

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Process routes for 5000 series aluminum alloy sheet produced with TBC(twin-belt casting) have been successfully trialed, and applicability for inner structural parts of automobile was studied. The TBC 5000 sheet has finer microstructure than conventional DC processed 5000 series aluminum alloy sheet, resulting from the process characteristics. Optimization of composition and fine microstructure results in superior formability to DC5182 sheets. Moreover, the TBC 5000 sheet shows good performance in SCC resistance , adhesive bonding and coating tests, showing the ability for the application to hood-frame of car.

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