Modeling and Simulation of Medium-Duty Tactical Truck for Fuel Economy Improvement

Abstract

The impact of the vehicle fuel economy in tactical convey is amplified due to the fact that much of the present logistics support is devoted to moving fuel. Fuel economy improvement on medium-duty tactical truck has and continues to be a significant initiative for the U. S. Army. The focus of this study is the investigation and analysis of Automated Manual Transmissions (AMT) that have potential to improve the fuel economy of the 2.5-ton cargo trucks. The current platform uses a seven-speed automatic transmission. This study utilized a combination of on-road experimental vehicle data and analytical vehicle model and simulation. This paper presented the results of (1) establishment of a validated, high fidelity baseline analytical vehicle model, (2) modeling and simulation of two AMTs and their control strategy, and (3) optimization of transmissions shift schedules to minimize the fuel consumption. The fuel economy discrepancy between experimental average and the baseline simulation result was 2.87%. The simulation results indicated a 12.2% and 14.5% fuel economy improvement for the 12-speed and 10-speed AMT respectively.