The aim of this study is to investigate the spray characteristics of diesel and gasoline under various ambient conditions. Ambient conditions were simulated, ranging from atmospheric conditions to high pressure and temperature conditions such as those inside a combustion chamber of an internal combustion engine. Spray tip penetration and spray cross-sectional area were calculated in liquid and vapor spray development. In addition, initial spray development and end of injection near nozzle were visualized microscopically, to study spray atomization characteristics. Three injection pressures of 50 MPa, 100 MPa, and 150 MPa were tested. The ambient temperature was varied from 300 K to 950 K, and the ambient density was maintained between 1 kg/m³ and 20 kg/m³. Gasoline and diesel exhibited similar liquid penetration and spray cross-sectional area at every ambient density condition under non-evaporation. As the ambient temperature increased, liquid penetration length and spray area of both fuels’ spray were shortened and decreased by fuel evaporation near the spray boundary. However, the two fuels were characterized by different slopes in the decrement trend of spray area as the ambient temperature increased. The decrement slope trend coincided considerably with the distillation curve characteristics of the two fuels. Vapor spray boundary of gasoline and diesel was particularly similar, despite the different amount of fuel evaporation. It was assumed that the outer spray boundary of gasoline and diesel is always similar when using the same injector and injection conditions. In microscopic spray visualization, gasoline spray displayed a more unstable and asymmetric spray shape, with more dispersed and distributed fuel ligaments during initial spray development. Large amounts of fuel vapor cloud were observed near the nozzle at the end of the injection process with gasoline. Some amounts of this vapor cloud were attributed to the evaporation of residual fuel in the nozzle sac.

Previous studies have demonstrated the sensitivity of the dynamic behavior of carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) material over the carbon fiber direction by performing uniaxial excitation tests on a simple specimen. However, the variations in modal parameters (damping coefficient and resonance frequency) over the direction of carbon fiber have been partially explained in previous studies because all modal parameters have only been calculated using the representative summed frequency response function without modal analysis. In this study, the dynamic behavior of CFRP specimens was identified from experimental modal analysis and compared five CFRP specimens (carbon fiber direction: 0°, 30°, 45°, 60°, and 90°) and an isotropic SCS13A specimen using the modal assurance criterion. The first four modes were derived from the SCS13A specimen; they were used as reference modes after verifying with the analysis results from a finite element model. Most of the four mode shapes were found in all CFRP specimens, and the similarity increased when the carbon fiber direction was more than 45°. The anisotropic nature was dominant in three cases of carbon fiber, from 0° to 45°, and the most sensitive case was found in Specimen #3.

Automotive manufacturers typically assess the mechanical durability performance of ground vehicle components for vibration excitation using either random or harmonic spectral loading patterns, such as the loading patterns suggested in international standards (e.g., ISO-16750-3). Selection of the correct excitation profile is dependent on the service condition of the component of interest. However, in the instance where the vehicle component is exposed to both harmonic excitations and background noise, the severity of impact of the in-service environment cannot be satisfied via a single random or harmonic test alone. In this case, the optimal test strategy is to evaluate the vehicle component under a sine-on-random excitation. Within this study, a uniaxial excitation test was conducted for a notched simple specimen under three spectral loading cases (harmonic, random, and sine-on-random), and the test severity was determined based on two kinds of fatigue damage: the physical damage from measured strain and the calculated pseudo-damage from acceleration measurements, as indicated in ISO-16750-3. Based on this comparison of accumulated fatigue damage, the efficiency of the proposed sine-on random vibration was proved against conventional single spectral pattern test methods.

In this study, an autonomous driving system of a patient-transfer robot is developed. The developed autonomous driving system has a path-planning module and a motion-control module. Since the developed autonomous driving system is applied to medical robots, such as patient-transfer robots, the main purpose of this study is to generate an optimal path for the robot’s movement and to ensure the patient on board moves comfortably in the PTR. In particular, for the patient’s comfortable movement, a lower controller is needed to minimize the sway angle of the patient. In this paper, we propose a hybrid path-planning algorithm that combines the A-STAR algorithm as a global path-planning method and the AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process)-based path-planning algorithm as a local path-planning method. In addition, model-based controllers are designed to move patient-transport robots along planned paths. In particular, the LQR controller with the Kalman filter is designed to be robust to the uncertainty and disturbance of the model including the patient. The optimal path generation and patient shaking angle reduction performance of the proposed autonomous driving system have been demonstrated via a simulation on a map that mimics a hospital environment.