Comfort and Quietness

The comfort of a vehicle is described by three factors: Noise, Vibration, and Harshness (NVH). Noise includes unwanted noise, vibration includes vibrations transmitted from the engine and the tires, and harshness refers to vibrations felt in the steering wheel, seats, or floor due to uneven road surfaces. Therefore, vibration control technologies are important for improving comfort, vibration control characteristics need to be evaluated.
In addition, materials used for automobile interiors are required to comply with indoor environmental regulations, in particular regarding VOCs, and comfort within the interior as it relates to smells is also being pursued. For this reason, attempts to quantify driving comfort based on sensory evaluation have also begun.

Evaluations of the attenuation characteristics of shock absorbers

The bottom components of automobile will be applied load from various angles, during driving. At the time of trial, in order to determine the quality of the design result, it makes the performance evaluation in an environment that simulates the actual running. In the case of simulating a real run, you need to make the load from multiple directions at the same time. In this case, by combining a plurality of jacks, a multi-axis system which realizes an environment close to actual running is enabled.

Interior odors

Solving odor problems requires identifying the substances causing the odor. However, accurate identification requires relevant knowledge, such as knowing which types of compounds can cause odors, the odor quality, and threshold levels for sensing odors. In this page introduce odor analysis using an Off-flavor analysis system.

Quantitation of sensory tests

When driving a car, the human brain is doing a variety of high-level cognitive processing. If the stress of the brain is high during driving, due to lowering of attention, mistakes will be considered to be more likely to occur. As a result, there is a possibility that lead to the for accident. In order to achieve a comfortable driving, with as much as possible reduce the stress of the brain involved in driving, it is important to the corresponding immediately if needed. By measuring the brain function during driving, it has been attempted to grasp the cognitive work load on the brain.

Evaluating Durability of Steering Mechanisms for Automobiles in Three Axes

The steering wheel in an automobile requires high durability. Since the arm strength of drivers varies greatly, many vehicles are fitted with complex power-assisted mechanisms. On the other hand, luxury cars and sports cars demand specifications that can achieve a premium, high-quality feel when they are being driven, and with this diversification of new requirements, there is a growing need for quantification in addition to human evaluations.

Judgment of the Acceptance of Light Shielding Films for Automobiles

In the transportation equipment industry, UV-VIS spectrophotometers are used for determining the ultraviolet and visible light transmittance of window glass, but they are also used to judge the quality of materials.
Here, using a commercial light-shielding film for automobiles as an example, the automated determination of pass or fail using the spectral evaluation function is introduced.

Photocatalysts

Photocatalysts generate oxidative power on their surface when light shines on them, and they are thought to be environmental purification materials that can remove harmful substances, such as organic compounds and bacteria, that they come into contact with. Therefore, photocatalysts are used not only to reduce smells and contamination in vehicle interiors, but are expected to be used for antibacterial and antiviral measures. The effect of photocatalysts depends on the properties of the material used and its dimensions and shape, so there is a demand for effective measurement of their optical properties and particle size distributions. Also, evaluation of the electrical properties in the reaction processes is effective for understanding photocatalyst reactions.

Quantitation of sensory tests

Interior odors