Search Results

EcoCAR 2: Plugging in to the Future is a three-year collegiate engineering competition established by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and General Motors (GM). North Carolina State University is designing a Series Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) on a 2013 Chevrolet Malibu vehicle platform. The designed vehicle has a pure electric range of 55 miles and an overall range of 235 miles with a range extension system. The vehicle is designed to reduce fuel consumption and gas emission while maintaining consumer acceptability in the areas of performance, utility, and safety. This reports details the vehicle development process with an emphasis on control system development and refinement. Advanced manufacturing, modeling, and simulation have been used to ensure a safe and functional vehicle at the upcoming year 3 final competition.

The introduction of parallel post transmission hybrid electric vehicles has demonstrated a limitation of previous mathematical models of the hydraulic torque converter. Earlier models developed by Hrovat and Tobler (2) and Kotwicki (4) in the 1980's only covered the cases of the below coupled and coupled states without anticipating the need to analyze the converter in the overrunning case. This study develops the relations for the overrunning case, allowing the reader to establish accurate predictions or computer simulations of the flow, torque, and speeds that will be result in the case of a post transmission hybrid system. Without additional measures, these post transmission hybrid systems will generate large fluid losses in the torque converter.