I'm going to have an opportunity to attend the SAE World Congress this year. There's going to be a lot of cool presentations, and I might get an opportunity to talk to some really smart people in the industry. It runs from Tuesday through Thursday this week in Detroit. This is the schedule I have mapped out, mostly for powertrain related stuff:







presentations in bold are from individuals who work directly for a major OEM. Most of the others are from suppliers or academics. I'm hoping to pick up maybe 10-20% of the stuff being presented--I'm sure some of it will be boring & useless though. Some of these presentations overlap in terms of time so I won't be able to attend them all.

4/21/2012 12:06:55 PM

Don't care

4/21/2012 12:17:20 PM

sigh...


I should have applied myself more in college

4/21/2012 2:00:01 PM

looks pretty cool - are any of the papers or abstracts published for free?

4/21/2012 2:37:02 PM

^ shit no, unless you really do count the 1 paragraph that comes up when you search the paper on their website.

SAE is the RIAA of engineering.

4/21/2012 3:01:12 PM

Thursday 9:45 "is there really no replacement for displacement?"

nope. class over.

4/22/2012 11:29:23 AM

Quote :

""is there really no replacement for displacement?""

Well, yeah. But I think they're going to say that direct injection + turbo + variable valve events + cooled EGR is close enough, if you don't even count some kind of electric assist.

4/22/2012 10:01:08 PM

But larger displacement engines with all that will still make more power. They need to work in engines that run so lean the egts are cool again. But that condition usually makes igniting the mixture difficult.

4/22/2012 11:10:19 PM

i'd like to do to that. how do I get a ticket?

4/23/2012 9:49:04 AM

Quote :

"But larger displacement engines with all that will still make more power."

Ah, if only the government taxed you less for making more power...

Quote :

"i'd like to do to that. how do I get a ticket?"

It's on the SAE website. You do know it's in downtown Detroit? Kind of late to plan going this year...

4/23/2012 7:59:24 PM

yea..too late this year...i'll look into it for the future. thanks

4/23/2012 11:54:06 PM

Met some cool people today and got some pics. They had a lot of Ford Ecoboost stuff on display, like the 1.0 3 cylinder about to be introduced in Europe. Interestingly enough, the 1.0 was developed almost completely in Germany by FEV (the McKinsey of automotive engineering consultants), while the 3.5 was developed in-house by Ford in Michigan with a lot less outside involvement. This makes sense because the 3.5 is intended for the large rear-drive vehicles in the US market.

Some of the presentations were pretty interesting, and a few were a disappointment as one would expect. Engine boosting Technical session #1 was packed and three guys from Turbonetics were in the front row. I talked to a couple groups of guys with some of those weird engine cycles like the Scuderia engine (Google it or whatever). They seemed cool but you could tell that they hadn't thought too far into the actual details of implenting their engine into a mass production passenger vehicle.

They had the new Dodge Dart there and I could sit in it. It's way nicer than a damn Neon, that's for sure. I've got a bunch of pics that I can post later.

4/24/2012 9:29:08 PM

The words "interestingly enough" should only be used when you mention something INTERESTING

4/24/2012 10:38:59 PM