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Impact of Vehicle Weight Reduction on Fuel Economy for Various Vehicle Architectures
This research report was performed by Ricardo Inc. and funded by The Aluminum Association to evaluate miles per gallon (MPG) gains by using lightweight aluminum in gas and diesel vehicles. In the study, physics models were developed using MSC.Easy 5 simulation software with production cars and trucks from 2008 as base models. These simulation models were compared to base models by reducing engine size and vehicle weight by 5%, 10%, and 20%. Overall it's concluded that reducing engine size results in greater fuel economy than reducing vehicle weight. Other observations are weight reduction produces higher fuel economy at speeds lower than 30 mph compared to higher speeds due to tractive force, reducing engine displacement raises brake mean effective pressure resulting in higher MPG and engine efficiency, and truck engines cannot be downsized as much as cars due to performance demands when under load, thus benefitting more from weight reduction.
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