Abstract
Keywords - Engine, Fuel Consumption, Emissions, Modelling, Robustness.
Abstract - The paper describes the development and application of an integrated systems model to investigate robustness issues as part of the vehicle development process. Potential effects on fuel economy and tailpipe emissions from a vehicle were the main concern. The sensitivities of these to sensor response characteristics, valve and throttle flow characteristics, offsets in spark timing setting, volumetric efficiency drift, and so on, were investigated as part of design proving. The number of simulation runs required was greatly reduced by applying Design of Experiment (DOE) methods to the test array design and analysis of results. The approach has proven to be practicable and powerful. There is considerable potential to exploit ISMs more widely in areas such as the time compression of development cycles and total quality or brand attribute engineering processes.