University of Michigan - Dearborn: College of Engineering & Computer Science

Guidelines

Must complete six (6) courses before registering for Capstone Project (AE 698) or by consent of advisor.
Must work in a team consisting of two members.
Must submit a project proposal (maximum two pages long) to the Interdisciplinary Program (IDP) director at least two weeks prior to the semester in which the project will be started. The proposal should contain the following items:

- Title
- Names and Contact Information (e-mail and phone no.) of Team Members
- Background
- Objectives
- Procedure/Methodology
- Timing Chart

The project proposal must be approved by the faculty member in charge (project advisor) as well as the director of the Interdisciplinary Programs (IDP).
The team will work closely with the project advisor. The team members will be expected to meet regularly with the project advisor, updating him/her on the progress of the project and seeking further direction.
The project can be in any area of automotive engineering or related fields, but must be big enough in scope for a two semester, six-credit hour course for each team member.
A rough estimate for the amount of work involved is nine hours per week per team member for two semesters.
The project must produce a high quality work to be judged by a project committee, which will include the faculty member in charge and at least one other committee member, one of which may be an industrial advisor.
The team will be expected to give a written progress report to the project advisor at the end of the first term.
Each team must submit a bound copy of the project and make an open oral presentation at the end of the project. For the format of the Project Report, send an e-mail to sjboyd@umich.edu
The faculty member in charge will give the letter grade at the end of the project in consultation with the other committee member(s).

Titles of Recently Completed Capstone Projects and Thesis

Comparative Study between IC and Non-traditional Powertrains with respect to Various Vehicle Attributes (Capstone Project)
Design of Next Generation Fuel Pump Module for Harley Davidson Motor Cycles (Capstone Project)
Value Analysis Tool for Automotive Interior Door Trim Panel Material Selection (Capstone Project)
Low Slope Injector Calibration and Fuel Density Effects including E85 (Capstone Project)
Applying Six Sigma and Total Quality Management Tools to Tie Rod Joint Torque Efforts (Capstone Project)
Modeling of Plug-In Series Hybrid Powertrain for USPS Carrier Route Vehicle (Capstone Project)
Trailbraking: Increasing Vehicle Responsiveness by Braking (Capstone Project)
Design Improvement for Shift Quality in Automotive Manual Transmissions. Shift Effort and Feel Analytical Model (Capstone Project
Design of Dual Sliding Mechanism and Performance Analysis of Low Mass Vehicle Doors (Capstone Project)
Brake System Model Correlation Study (Capstone Project)
Weight Optimization of an Automatic Transmission (Capstone Project)
Modeling of a Hybrid Electric Vehicle Powertrain Test Cell using Bond Graphs (Thesis)
Effects of Crush Initiators on the Crush Behavior and Energy Absorption of Aluminum, Composite and Hybrid Round Tubes (Thesis)
Aqueous Corrosion Rate Determination of Magnesium Alloys using Various Techniques (Thesis)
Non-Linear Predictive Controllers for Vehicle Dynamics Enhancement (Thesis)
Investigating the Effects of Suspension Properties on Vehicle Roll Stability (Thesis)
Development of Accurate Constitutive Models for Simulation of Superplastic Forming (Thesis)

Topics for Consideration

Following are some examples of capstone project ideas that you may want to consider for AE 698. If you would like to work on one of these projects, contact the faculty named after each project. If you have some ideas of your own, contact Prof. P.K. Mallick, IDP Director, for his advice.

1.	A Numerical Investigation of Refrigerant Cycling Losses in an Automotive Climate Control System (Prof. E. Ratts, ME) Involves developing a transient model of system or components to investigate heat transfer and pressure drop losses during transient operation of the vehicle. Evaluation of losses will involve second law analysis.
2.	Design Optimization of Manual Transmission Gearing (Prof. Y. Zhang, ME) Design of gear geometry parameters, layouts, nonstandard gearing, strength and endurance, dimension minimization, etc.
3.	Kinematics and Dynamics of Planetary Gear Train Systems of Automotive Transmissions (Prof. Y. Zhang, ME) Analysis of gear ratios and torques, torque analysis during shifts, layouts and structure of planetary trains, design of planetary gearing.
4.	Design and Analysis of Continuously Variable Transmissions (Prof. Y. Zhang, ME) Survey of current CVT models, assessment of existing design and analysis methods, optimization of CVT parameters, CVT controls.
5.	Crashworthiness of Current-Day Automobiles (Prof. P.K. Mallick, ME/IDP) This project will first involve an extensive literature search on the crashworthiness design, tests and industry standards for today's automobiles. It will then consider mathematical models and simulation techniques that are used to predicting crashworthiness of a mid-size car and develop an algorithm for determining its crashworthiness.
6.	Smart Sensors for Wheels and Tires (Prof. P.K. Mallick, ME/IDP) This project will start with a review of sensors and associated instrumentation for wheels and tires. It will also consider the tire and wheel load analysis. Finally, it will involve designing one or more smart sensors for composite wheels and tires.
7.	Life Cycle Assessment of Automotive Seats (Prof. P.K. Mallick, ME/IDP) Life cycle assessment of automotive seats, including seat structure, seat cushion, seat cover, seat belts and fasteners, will be the main emphasis of this project. Alternative materials, design and assembly / disassembly techniques will be considered and comparison between these alternatives will be made. Recycling concepts will be explored.
8.	Development of Composite Intensive Rear Suspension System (Prof. P.K. Mallick, ME/IDP) This project will examine new design, packaging and manufacturing concepts for rear suspension systems containing light weight fiber reinforced composite materials.
9.	Practical Applications of Controlled Crush Energy Management in Frontal or Side Impact (Prof. P.K. Mallick, ME/IDP) This project will start with an extensive literature review of crush energy management techniques for either frontal or side impact. It will then involve designing one or more practical design concepts using metals, composites and combinations of these materials.
10.	Driver Monitoring (Prof. S. Lakshmanan, ECE) An imaging system to study the steering and attention behavior of automotive drivers.
11.	Virtual Camber (Prof. S. Lakshmanan, ECE) An image sensor based real-time automotive system for "easy" lane keeping.
12.	You drive, I'll follow (Prof. S. Lakshmanan, ECE) An image and range sensor based system for semi-autonomous leader-follower convoys.
13.	Electronic Tether (Prof. S. Lakshmanan, ECE) An image and range sensor based system for easy on/off trailers.
14.	Flywheel Design for Electric Cars (Prof. P.K. Mallick, ME/IDP) Design concepts for flywheels in advanced materials will be developed. The emphasis will be not only on energy storage, but also on controlled release of energy according to the driving speed.
15.	Durability Analysis of an All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) The SAE Fatigue, Design, and Evaluation (FD&E) is sponsoring a project to evaluate methods for estimating the structural durability of a Honda ATV. This project consists of several activities. One activity includes developing multi-body dynamics models to analytically predict structural component loads. Another activity includes using vehicle dynamics, FEA, and fatigue models to predict service life of critical components.
16.	Computer Simulation of Vehicle Ride (Prof. T. Shim, ME) This project concentrates on developing computer models for simulating vehicle ride. Areas of interest include, developing models that properly represent the dynamic behavior of independent and rigid axle suspensions. Another area includes tire modeling for vehicle ride and durability simulation.
17.	Active Shocks for Off-Road Vehicles (Prof. T. Shim, ME) The goal for this project is to use computer simulation to determine how effective active shocks can be for improving the ride and handling of off road vehicles.
18.	Brake Based Articulated Vehicle Stability Control (Prof. T. Shim, ME) The project will develop a theoretical analysis for behavior of articulated vehicles at braking on a low friction road.
19.	Numerical Analysis of Automotive Ignition Coil Driver Devices This project will focus on investigating characteristics of semiconductor devices such as IGBTs in the automotive ignition applications. A semiconductor device simulator will be used after the macro models are built for the inductive coil and spark plug. Experimental verification may be needed.
20.	Simulation of Hybrid Vehicles (Prof. C. Mi, ECE)
21.	Embedded Generator and Starter for 42-Volt Vehicles (Prof. C. Mi, ECE)
22.	Hybrid Power Train Design and Modeling (Prof. C. Mi, ECE)
23.	High Performance AC Motor/Generator Drives in Electric and Hybrid Electric Vehicles (Prof. T. Kim, ECE) In this project, an advanced control technique to maximize power density of AC motor/generator system in electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) will be studied and implemented. Will involve the development of a control algorithm, building of an inverter circuit and MATLB/Simulink based modeling.
24.	System Design and Control of Hybrid Electric Vehicles (Prof. T. Kim, ECE) In this project, a detailed system level simulation model (using MATLAB/Simulink or Simplorer) will be developed. Based on a driving cycle, both system-level performance and component-level performance will be evaluated. Also, to maximize fuel efficiency, detailed HEV design procedure and system level control strategy for power management will be studied.
25.	Design and Simulation of Hydroformed Tubular Structures (Prof. G. Kridli, IMSE and Prof. P.K. Mallick, ME/IDP)