The CVDC held its September meeting at the headquarters of Poclain Hydraulics, one of the newest members of the Consortium. This was also the first meeting for Tridec, another new member to the consortium.

The University researchers presented their work over the last six months encompassing areas such as whole life pavement modelling, vulnerable road users, advanced ABS and regenerative braking.  Future research directions were also discussed, and possible future projects were suggested.

During a break in the proceedings Poclain demonstrated various display vehicles to the members as well as giving a tour of their extensive laboratory facilities.

The full day's proceedings are available to the consortium members via the Members section of the website.

Will's presentation was titled 'Specifying a Hydraulic Regenerative Braking System for an Articulated Urban Delivery Vehicle', and was well-received by the attendees.

The CVDC is pleased to announce that Tridec B.V. has joined the Consortium.  Tridec is a world leader in development and manufacturing of mechanical and hydraulic steering systems and axle suspensions for all types of trailers.

David Cebon, Director of the CVDC said "We are delighted that Tridec has joined Team-CVDC.  Their vast experience in manufacture of steerable axles is complementary to CVDC's work on active steering.  We look forward to researching a range of innovative technologies together."

Cambridge, UK and Verberie, France 01/03/2011

Poclain brings 30 years of hydraulics experience in the development of innovative hydraulic motors for heavy-vehicle and agricultural applications. Poclain’s recent work on the French hybrid Irisbus project will make them an invaluable contributor to the hybrid vehicle/energy efficiency research that CVDC is undertaking. “Improving the energy efficiency of freight transport is a vital waypoint on the road to a sustainable economy,” said Professor David Cebon, Director of the CVDC. “Poclain Hydraulics brings a demonstrated commitment to hybrid vehicle research with the practical experience to see ideas translated into results.”

Poclain is a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of hydrostatic transmissions with integrated cam lobe motors. From its headquarters in Verberie, France, Poclain manages a sales and manufacturing team of over 1500 people. Poclain has factories in France, the USA, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, India, and Italy, which distribute through a global network of over 150 distributors.

For more on Poclain, visit their website (http://www.poclain-hydraulics.com/). For further information on the CVDC, contact Professor David Cebon (dc@eng.cam.ac.uk) or visit the CVDC website (http://www.cvdc.org).

David Cebon, Will Midgley, and Jonathan Miller talked about progress in MEng projects, the actively steered B-double project, regenerative braking of heavy vehicles, and an advanced pneumatic actuator for heavy-vehicle braking, respectively. Leon Henderson, a new postgraduate at Cambridge, made his CVDC debut and introduced his preliminary work on emergency braking strategies for heavy vehicles.

Arvin-Meritor, Firestone, Goodyear, Haldex, and Volvo all presented on new developments in their respective corporations at what was the first non-Firestone meeting held at the FTC. The FTC was first opened in 2008 and members were given a fascinating tour of the new facility.

The members in attendance approved the Core Program of Research for 2011, though uncertainty remains over the continuity of postdoctoral funding beyond this autumn.

The next CVDC meeting will be held in mid-October 2010 at MIRA, hosted by Haldex. This meeting promises to be a unique, 2-day session encompassing both a CVDC meeting and a demonstration of members’ experimental project vehicles.

Presentations from this meeting and the above mentioned papers are available in the Members’ Area.

Further information on the CVDC can be found here.

The results of CVDC-funded and other affiliated work was presented in March at the 11th Heavy Vehicle Transport Technology (HVTT) symposium in Melbourne, Victoria. Professor David Cebon and Will Goodrum presented results from work on the actively-steered B-double project, advanced pneumatics for heavy-vehicle braking, improving the energy efficiency of heavy vehicles, and a new method of modelling traffic for pavement damage calculations, to a cross-disciplinary audience of international experts. The theme of HVTT 11 was "balancing competing needs"; a task well understood and highlighted by the breadth of work and expertise of the members of the CVDC. Of primary concern for all attendees at HVTT 11 was seeing greater community engagement, environmental stewardship, and technological innovation by the heavy vehicle sector in the future. HVTT 11 was held in the State Library of Victoria from 14-16 March and was attended by 150 representatives from heavy vehicle companies, road transport authorities, and academia from around the world.

More information on HVTT 11 can be found on the conference website.

More information on the work presented by the CVDC at HVTT 11 can be found in our Members’ Area.

Researchers validated a simulation of HGV fuel consumption without expensive testing facilities using novel, simple, and common-sense experimental tests. The benchmarked mathematical model predicted the fuel consumption over a 4km drive cycle for a 37 tonne semi-trailer combination to within 1.4%. Work within the CVDC on the issue of energy efficient transportation is continuing to show which methods are effective, and which are just hot air.

More information on continuing work within CVDC on regenerative braking and other strategies for improving heavy vehicle energy efficiency can be found on the Projects page.

By developing advanced control strategies for the CVDC steering trailer, researchers were able to eliminate roundabout entry tail swing. In high-speed lane change manoeuvres, active steering improved rollover stability by reducing lateral acceleration by 27%.

Experiments with the new CVDC B-double configuration revealed that unsteered LCVs cannot negotiate a UK roundabout. With active steering, the CVDC B-train used less swept-path width than a conventional semi-trailer and produced no tail swing. By using path-following control, the B-double configuration navigated a standard UK roundabout in reverse with virtually zero path error; an impossible task for an unsteered vehicle.

More details and references can be found in the project summary report here.

Videos of the CVDC semitrailer performing roundabout manoeuvres can be found here.

Videos of the new CVDC B-train can be found here.

For more information on Goodyear, please follow the link on the Sponsors page.