Engineering Magazines

Henkel Corporation has announced its continued sponsorship of the University of Michigan Solar Car Team. As part of being a Silver Sponsor, Henkel continues to lend its technology and expertise to this project.

Since 2005, Henkel has partnered with the Michigan Solar Car Team to provide products on their vehicles, which compete every two years. This is a great opportunity for both organizations to exchange ideas and utilize technology for alternative energy applications.

“We appreciate the technological support we have received from Henkel,” said Steve Durbin, interim project manager, UM Solar Car. “It is a great benefit to our team members to utilize products used on vehicles in mass production.”

“Henkel is dedicated to supporting the educational community,” said Chuck Evans, executive vice president, automotive, Henkel. “The students of the Michigan Solar Car Team and their exploration of alternative energy sources is representative of the sustainable direction of the automotive industry. We are honored to have supported the University of Michigan in their successful endeavor at the 2009 World Solar Challenge, and congratulate them on their third place finish.”

For additional information on Henkel’s automotive solutions, please visit www.henkelna.com/automotive.

About Henkel

Henkel (www.henkelna.com/automotive) is the market leader in adhesives, sealants and surface treatments to the transportation industry. Backed by extensive design capabilities, a broad product range, specific application knowledge and technical expertise, the company delivers solutions to all segments of automotive development – automotive body, interior, chassis, electronics and powertrain production. Through powerful brands like Loctite®, Teroson®, Aquence(TM), Bonderite®, Frekote® and Multan(TM), Henkel provides significant economic and environmental advantages for today’s vehicles, making them safer, more comfortable and extending vehicle value.

Henkel has been committed to making people’s lives easier, better and more beautiful for more than 130 years. A Fortune Global 500 and Germany’s most admired company according to a recent Fortune survey, Henkel offers strong brands and technologies in three areas of competence: Home Care, Personal Care and Adhesive Technologies. Each day, more than 52,000 employees in 125 countries are dedicated to fulfilling Henkel’s claim “A Brand like a Friend.” In fiscal 2008, Henkel generated sales of 14,131 million euros and adjusted operating profit of 1,460 million euros.

About University of Michigan Solar Car Team

The University of Michigan Solar Car Team is an entirely student-run organization whose purpose is to design, finance, build, and race a solar-powered vehicle in competitions around North America and the world. We are dedicated to the development of our members as teammates, educators, and leaders, and  to the  education  of  our community  on the potentials  of alternative energy  technology.

Students who volunteer for the Solar Car Team are typically undergraduates who come from a wide range of academic disciplines, including majors within the College of Engineering, the Ross School of Business, and the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. Each project operates on a two-year project cycle and sees as many as 200 volunteer students participating on the team.

For more information, visit www.solarcar.engin.umich.edu .

And the US automotive industry is in dire straits. It did not learn from the 1973 energy crisis. It did not learn from the Chrysler experience. It did not learn from Toyota. It continued to depend on old, worn out concepts and on CEO’s that are kept in their positions by nepotism and by boards that do not understand the automotive business.

In a joint effort the Big Three are asking the US government for a $25 billion loan. They argue that government demands for increased fuel efficiency are too expensive to implement and require huge amounts of capital for retooling.

Let’s assume for the moment that the argument has some merit. But how can companies with worldwide manufacturing facilities fail to notice the steady increase in fuel prices and not see the warning signs hoisted by governments across the world that want to limit greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel consumption. This neglect is inexcusable. Efforts of US and European governments to limit fuel consumption are misdirected, counterproductive, and coercive. A comprehensive analysis quickly reveals that we must indeed limit and eventually halt greenhouse gas emissions.

OPEC countries will continue their unstoppable increases of petroleum prices. Electric cars, CNG powered cars, and hydrogen powered cars cannot stop carbon dioxide emissions perceptibly and will not make our country independent of OPEC imports. Automotive companies are critically dependent on the fickle and changing preferences of national and international markets.

Industrial companies that follow political hype will be punished sooner or later. Governments are incapable of designing automobiles for the market place. The world is relegated to using automobiles, trucks, trains, ships, and airplanes for the next century and will have to power most of them with liquid transportation fuels. We may be able to use less of them, we will be able to reduce energy consumption, we can use other forms of energy for some transportation, and we can produce petroleum substitutes from biomass. We can even produce biomass without competing with critically important food crops.

In order to minimize fuel consumption quickly, the auto industry is forced to deal with performance features. American drivers cannot avoid covering much longer distances than European or Japanese drivers. American drivers have less access to public transportation, have larger families, and drive on different types of roads. Automotive companies must listen to their customers.

Toyota and Honda have been listening most successfully. American and foreign car companies have developed a wide range of comfortable cars with a wide variety of utilitarian and luxury features. Sportive cars and SUV’s are attracting large numbers of buyers. All cars offer a wide selection of comfort and entertainment features. One major car component has received only peripheral attention; it is the much maligned internal combustion engine.

Many modern internal combustion engines are marvels of engineering. Materials, manufacturing processes, and especially peripheral components have progressed to unprecedented levels of performance and longevity. There is a last frontier that has escaped deserved attention. This is the highly energy efficient combustion engine. This is the type of engine that the automotive engine needs to develop, this is the engine that legislators should make mandatory.

This is the engine that we need to use for at least one more century. Long term the automotive industry has to develop an entirely new, advanced, internal combustion engine! Average energy efficiency of the worlds inventory of combustion engines is somewhere in the lower mid-twenties. Energy efficiency cannot grow indefinitely. When approaching the 50% efficiency mark, it will be difficult and very expensive to increase efficiency by a single percent. Advanced automotive engines are operating in the mid-thirties.

Large stationary engines are breaking the 45% mark. Large engines on trains and ships are getting above 40%. Looking at the total world inventory, we may still have a chance to nearly double energy efficiency and to cut energy consumption of present inventory in half. We cannot reach this goal by legislating fuel consumption of cars only. We can achieve optimum energy efficiency only by reengineering the processes taking place within and around the internal combustion space.

We know that higher compression ratios will increase energy efficiency, we know how to produce high octane fuel, we know why Diesel engines are more efficient, we know how to minimize formation of pollutants. The automotive industry has developed a huge selection of sophisticated electronic components for single cylinder fuel injection, for precise controls of valve motion and ignition timing, and for reclaiming waste energy at the exhaust.

No company seems to have found the nerve to get a jump on the competition and develop the successor to the two more than century old engine concepts; the Otto and the Diesel engines. If the US government decides to extend a $25 billion loan to the automotive industry, it should attach a few conditions. The loan needs to be secured and must take precedent over shareholder equity. The loan should stipulate that the salaries of top management are tethered to salaries of other top CEO’s like that of the US President.

The obscene bonuses of yesterday should be paid only after a waiting period of at least five years; in which previously agreed upon management objectives must have been met or exceeded. We must stop the prevalent looting of cash from US manufacturing companies by unscrupulous investors. These investors do not contribute anything of lasting value. They are excessively rewarded for ruining once healthy companies. We cannot continue to let a selected few impoverish the many and ruin our country irreparably.

Automobile is a vital object of your life and it is used for turning your life forward. To understand your car finer and make it intact you have to think your car as a absolute automatic system. And like all automotive systems it requires upkeep to make alive. Time we use cars or vehicles we rarely observance it as a absolute system. Just imagine how the things are structured and how this automotive system works. The variations introduced by vehicle manufacturers are nothing but making automotive systems finer and finer!

All the units in your car from keyless entry to power steering wheel, chrome alloy wheels to power windows, cooling system and engine adjustment all together form automotive systems. And upkeep of automotive systems is not an effortless thing. Today’s car is not a object of big machineries and parts; it is more or less like a computer; fine, fitted with smaller and brainy units. upkeep of it requires intelligence and knowledge. Without suitable knowledge and intent about the systems one cannot just cover the job of maintaining an engine perfectly. Hence it is very strategic for you to give an extra eye to upkeep of automotive systems.

Maintenance of your automotive systems must be done according to standards mentioned by manufacturers. Besides going for the proper upkeep of automotive systems, you can also cerebrate of certain enlistment in your car for improving automotive performance. Such enlistment and installation of parts in your automotive system will raise the performance of your vehicle and gain gas mileage. Given beneath are few accessories which can upgrade the performance of your car.

Reusable Air Filters: Reusable air filters are one of the good units you can buy for your car. It not only saves a favorable deal of money, but such filters have been found to amount acceleration of your vehicle. The use of reusable air filters have also a favorable outcome on environment. Such reusable air filter lasts longer for your car and keeps on keeping the performance uncastrated.

Performance Chips: Most brand new cars are operated by computer chips and those chips terminate the torque and h.p. to be displaced. Recalibrations or performance chips are highly in use these days to improve automotive performance. Installing performance chips will help you amount the torque and h.p. of your vehicle significantly.

Performance Exhaust Systems: This is another way to take care of automotive performance. The catalyst back exhaust system is a extraordinary way to free cornered force and loose the h.p.. This automotive system incorporates larger width exhaust pipe and low restriction muffler tips into your vehicle which lowers the exhaust back pressure. Another favorable gain of this system is a sound impression of your vehicle which is really awesome.

Cold Air Intake: This upgrade system is under the bonnet mod which is utilised to reduce the temperature of air entering the car to amount power of engine. This installation enhances your engine looks besides increasing its power. This object too makes the sound of engine appealing.

For the legendary Lamborghini sports car stable of fantastic ultra high performance and styled vehicles it all started with ordinary Fiat automobiles and tractors.

Mr. Lamborghini – fully named – Mr. Ferruccio Lamborghini got his start with Fiats and then went on to a large successful manufacturing concern that grew from a small manufacturing shop into a major producer of tractors. However at a certain point in every person’s life they search out to complete what their real passion is. In the case of Lamborghini was finely styled and crafted motor cars. At 60 years of age, an established manufacturer of agricultural tractors – Mr. Lamborghini – decided that he could a better job of building a high end, beautifully styled, performance racing automobiles than either of the two dominant Italian auto firms of that auto industry sector – Ferrari and Maserati.

The first product out of the door had a chassis that was multi-tubular; the engine was front mounted sporting a 3.5 liter 12 cylinder V-12 engine. The V-12 engine itself was fitted with six Weber carburetors and ran four overhead camshafts. It all clocked at 360 ultra smooth horsepower with the transmission drive being through five speed stick shift. Suspension involved a coil and wishbone independent suspension set up. In one word it was wow – both in terms of performance of the hop as well as the automotive styling.

Although the styling of those early Lamborghini models may be considered standard Italian sports car design – designs which have worked their way into the so called standard “sport scar designs “and “sport scar flair”, at the time it was new and innovative and for the most part if was twenty five years ahead of anything produced in the good old U.S.A. . The one American sports car which might be considered an exception to that point was the Chevrolet Corvette. For years to come nothing else really matched or was similar to the clean aerodynamic lines and styling of the early Lamborghini classic autos.

Even then Lamborghini had such innovative products the establishment and reputation of the Lamborghini product line was no easy road to hoe. Although the first cars were produced in 1963 it was not for two years later – at the Turin Motor Show that the car began to attract solid interest and for the reputation of the car and its studio to grow and begin to become accepted for what it should be.

The first real product of record for Lamborghini was what was marketed as Miura T 400 model automobile. Its first year of manufacture was the 1966 model year. The basic layout and design of the Miura T 400 was a mid-engined coupe with a slightly larger version of the overhead cam engine – the classic V-12 laid out transversely behind the two seats of the car. The rear wheels were then driven by this engine through” spurs gears”. Interestingly the gear boxes and rear axles were Lamborghini products all by themselves -so they shared a lineage that was unique and not the same as any other of the competitor’s models.

What was performance of this little cat? The V-12 engine could pour out a total of 385 barrel horsepower. Top speed of this little coupe was over 180 miles per hour. It could more than carry its weight with the local Italian contenders – even the famed Ferraris.

If the was one complaint from drivers or riders it was of noise levels in the car’s cockpit. It can be said that this was the price to be paid for success or in this case speed and performance. If you cannot stand the heat don’t stay in the kitchen. Certainly the buyers of Lamborghini fine motor cars who bought the product and established the revered name for its performance and advanced styling and forgo this small shortcoming or foible as the car as an assumed fact – even a luxury.

The next model in the Lamborghini stable was introduced approximately two years later. The entire life of the production run of the popular Miura model was nine years – with two cars being produced a week ( a production figure of only 100 or so cars a year). The name of this vehicle was the Espada. For the new Lamborghini model, the Espada, Lamborghini went back to a more standard front engine layout. Perhaps this was in response to concerns over noise levels in the cockpit of the Miura and the need to produce a more “standard” or “civilized “vehicle product. No one really knows what went on in the mind of the genius Ferruccio Lamborghini. However what was retained for sure were the Lamborghini basics – the four liter V-12 massive highly tuned engine with whizzy overhead cams and multiple choke carburetors all putting out massive automotive performance and handling.

In the end it can be said that the Lamborghini automotive and automotive styling and performance legends are more than unique and reek of power, thrust and acceleration.