Structural Design of Attitude Simulator for Performance Evaluation of Automobile Systems

Performance of automobile transmission systems is evaluated at different attitudes of the engine in order to simulate dynamic acceleration inputs. Dynamic test rigs presently being used for this purpose are of very large in physical size and not readily adaptable for use in the confines of conventional engine test systems. Moreover, these systems makes use of hydraulic power, which is not well adapted to an engine test system environment because of lack of centralized hydraulic power in these systems and potential problems with the use of high-pressure hydraulics in a high-temperature environment where mechanical damage to hydraulic power is possible. To get rid of the problems with conventional test rigs, design of powertrain attitude simulator is taken up in this project. This simulator can be comfortably used for testing engines, transmissions, gearboxes and etc. The intended system includes inner and outer frames that are rotated independently by gear reduced electric motors. The end result of this project would be a simulator, which provides both static and dynamic testing of automobile transmission systems during their operation in varying attitudes.