Ford Motor Company

About: Ford Motor Company is a company organization based out in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Internal combustion engine & Signal. The organization has 36123 authors who have published 51450 publications receiving 855200 citations. The organization is also known as: Ford Motor & Ford Motor Corporation.

Parallel hybrid powertrain for an automotive vehicle

Abstract: A hybrid powertrain for an automotive vehicle comprising an internal combustion engine and transmission assembly providing a first selectably shiftable geared torque flow path to vehicle traction wheels and an electric motor-generator unit defining a second geared torque flow path that is located between the output of the first geared torque flow path and the traction wheels. Through the deployment of an appropriate control system, including the necessary control algorithms, the electric motor-generator unit can be operated to supply torque to the traction wheels while the torque flow in the first torque flow path is interrupted during the occurrence of a ratio change in the transmission assembly and during disengagement of a clutch. Because of this interactive control of two power sources, the vehicle driveability can be enhanced along with an improvement of the engine exhaust gas emissions. In addition, the electric motor-generator unit in the second torque flow path can be used to launch the vehicle electrically immediately upon request of the operator. This ability of the powertrain permits engine-off operation during vehicle coast-down and standstill periods without any loss of driveability. During electric launch of the vehicle, the interactive control of the two power sources permits the internal combustion engine to be restarted and then gradually take over the propulsion task from the electric motor-generator unit.

Stress and Volume Relaxation in Annealing Flat Glass

Abstract: Laboratory simulation of the industrial process of annealing sheet glass has yielded data on the genesis of stresses in initially stress-free glass. The experimental results differed from expectations based on classical annealing theory in that stresses began to develop in the annealing range even when the glass was being cooled at a constant rate, i.e. even in the absence of any changes of temperature gradients within the glass. Typically, these stresses account for 40% of the total residual stress in glass annealed according to a linear schedule. The remaining 60% are the well-known thermoelastic stresses that arise later in the annealing process from the decay of temperature gradients in the glass. The stresses observed to arise in glass as it is being cooled at a constant rate are attributed to volume relaxation effects which, in parts of the annealing range, generate stresses rapidly enough that they are not dissipated by stress relaxation. A mathematical model of annealing is proposed that takes account of both stress and structural relaxation. The model fits the experimentally observed evolution of stresses during linear cooling. It also suggests that (with the activation energies of stress and structural relaxation about the same) the actual rate, at any given temperature, of structural relaxation is about 4 times lower than that of stress relaxation.

Verification of form tolerances part II: Cylindricity and straightness of a median line

Abstract: Most inspectors measure form tolerances as the minimum zone solution, which minimizes the maximum error between the datapoints and a reference feature. Current coordinate measuring machines verification algorithms are based on the least-squares solution, which minimizes the sum of the squared errors, resulting in a possible overestimation of the form tolerance. Therefore, although coordinate measuring machines algorithms successfully reject bad parts, they may also reject some good parts. The verification algorithms developed in this set of papers compute the minimum zone solution of a set of datapoints sampled from a part. Computing the minimum zone solution is inherently a nonlinear optimization problem. This paper develops a single verification methodology that can be applied to the cylindricity and straightness of a median line problems. The final implementable formulation solves a sequence of linear programs that converge to a local optimal solution. Given adequate initial conditions, this solution will be the minimum zone solution. This methodology is also applied to the problems of computing the minimum circumscribed cylinder and the maximum inscribed cylinder. Experimental evidence that the formulations are both robust and efficient is provided.