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Modeling thermal systems in Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) is crucial for enhancing energy efficiency through predictive control strategies, thereby extending vehicle range. A major obstacle in this modeling is the often limited availability of detailed system information. This research introduces a methodology using neural networks for system identification, a powerful technique capable of approximating the physical behavior of thermal systems with minimal data requirements. By employing black-box models, this approach supports the creation of optimization-based operational strategies, such as Model Predictive Control (MPC) and Reinforcement Learning-based Control (RL). The system identification process is executed using MATLAB Simulink, with virtual training data produced by validated Simulink models to establish the method's feasibility. The neural networks utilized for system identification are implemented in MATLAB code.

This publication outlines FEV’s engineering approach and the associated process steps for efficiency optimization of the entire powertrain definition for various commercial applications, from light-duty vehicles to heavy long-haul trucks, with particular emphasis on the most important use cases. A focus is on the crucial trade-off between attractive transient drivetrain performance and the pursuit of ultra-low, near zero tailpipe pollutant emissions. The applied measures, ranging from minimized mechanical friction and reduced losses to on-demand support by different boosting technologies, different types of H2 injection and mixture formation (external and internal), and different exhaust gas aftertreatment layouts, are thoroughly evaluated and investigated using FEV’s dedicated H2-ICE simulation tool chain. This enables the specification of satisfactory H2-ICE based powertrain solutions for a wide range of use cases in the commercial vehicle sector.

Despite the legislation targets set by several governments of a full electrification of new light-duty vehicle fleets by 2035, the development of innovative, environmental-friendly Internal Combustion Engines (ICEs) is still crucial to be on track toward the complete decarbonization of on road-mobility of the future. In such a framework, the PHOENICE (PHev towards zerO EmissioNs & ultimate ICE efficiency) project aims at developing a C SUV-class plug-in hybrid (P0/P4) vehicle demonstrator capable to achieve a -10% fuel consumption reduction with respect to current EU6 vehicle while complying with upcoming EU7 pollutant emissions limits. Such ambitious targets will require the optimization of the whole engine system, exploiting the possible synergies among the combustion, the aftertreatment and the exhaust waste heat recovery systems.

Heavy-duty vehicles represent a significant portion of road transport and they need to operate in a clean and efficient manner. Their emission control systems need to be enhanced to sustain the high conversion efficiencies seen during motorway conditions inother operating conditions. The European Commission is developing legislative proposals for Euro 7 emissions regulations for light- and heavy-duty vehicles. The new Euro 7regulation will likely focus on ensuring the emissions from heavy-duty vehicles are minimized over extensive on-road operating conditions and specifically on operating conditions such as urban driving and cold-start operation. These challenges are increased by the need to ensure low secondary emissions like NH3 and N2O, as well as a low impact on CO2 emissions. The paper outlines the low pollutant emissions achieved by a heavy-duty Diesel demonstrator vehicle.

The automotive industry continues to develop new powertrain and vehicle technologies aimed at reducing overall vehicle-level fuel consumption. Specifically, the use of innovative drivetrain technologies including conventional and electrified propulsion systems is expected to play an increasingly important role in helping OEMs meet fleet CO2 reduction targets for 2025 and beyond. NVH development for vehicles with electrified powertrains introduces new challenges, which need to be understood and solved. The electrified vehicle space spans variants from micro and mild hybrids all the way through plug-in hybrids and fully electric vehicles. In addition to conventional NVH development methodologies, active sound design (ASD) can play a crucial role to enhance the interior sound perception of such vehicles and hence, improve customer acceptance of new technologies. This paper will begin with an introduction to the NVH challenges posed by electrified vehicles.

Super ultra-low NOX emission engine concepts are essential to comply with future emission legislations. To meet the future emission standards, application of advanced diesel exhaust aftertreatment systems (EATS), such as Diesel Oxidation Catalyst (DOC), Lean NOX Trap (LNT), Selective Catalytic Reduction coatings on Soot Filters (SCRF) and underfloor SCR, is required. Effective customized thermal management strategies are essential to ensure fast light-off of the EATS after engine cold start, and to avoid significant cooldown during part load operation. The authors describes the investigation of different exhaust gas heating measures, such as intake throttling, late fuel injection, exhaust throttling, advanced exhaust cam phasing, retarded intake cam phasing, cylinder deactivation, full turbine bypass, electric catalyst heating and electrically heated intake manifold strategies.

Advanced powertrains for modern vehicles require the optimization of conventional combustion engines in combination with tailored electrification and vehicle connectivity strategies. The resulting systems and their control devices feature many degrees of freedom with a large number of available adjustment parameters. This obviously presents major challenges to the development of the corresponding powertrain control logics. Hence, the identification of an optimal system calibration is a non-trivial task. To address this situation, physics-based control approaches are evolving and successively replacing conventional map-based control strategies in order to handle more complex powertrain topologies. Physics-based control approaches enable a significant reduction in calibration effort, and also improve the control robustness.

Dynamic skip fire (DSF) is an advanced cylinder deactivation technology where the decision to fire or skip a singular cylinder of a multi-cylinder engine is made immediately prior to each firing opportunity. A DSF-equipped engine features the ability to selectively deactivate cylinders on a cylinder event-by-event basis in order to match the requested torque demand at optimum fuel efficiency while maintaining acceptable noise, vibration and harshness (NVH). Dynamic Skip Fire (DSF) has already shown significant fuel economy improvements for throttled spark-ignition engines. This paper explores the potential benefits of DSF technology in improving fuel economy while maintaining ultra-low tailpipe emissions for light-duty (LD) Diesel powertrains.

The Bharat Stage (CEV/Tractor) IV & V emission legislations will come into force in Oct 2020 & Apr 2024 respectively, posing a major engineering challenge in terms of system complexity, reliability, costs and development time. Solutions for the EU Stage-V NRMM legislation in Europe, from which the BS-V limits are derived, have been developed and are ready for implementation. To a certain extent these European solutions can be transferred to the Indian market. However, certain market-specific challenges are yet to be defined and addressed. In addition, a challenging timeline has to be considered for application of advanced technologies and processes during the product development. In this presentation, the emission roadmap will be introduced in the beginning, followed by a discussion of potential technology solutions on the engine itself as well as on the after treatment components.

Demanding CO2 and fuel economy regulations are continuing to pressure the automotive industry into considering innovative powertrain and vehicle-level solutions. Powertrain engineers continue to minimize engine internal friction and transmission parasitic losses with the aim of reducing overall vehicle fuel consumption. In Part 1 of the study (2017-01-0893) described aspects of the test stand design that provides flexibility for adaptation to various test scenarios. The results from measurements for a number of front-end accessory drive (FEAD) components were shown in the context of scatterbands derived from multiple component tests. Key results from direct drive and belt-driven component tests were compared to illustrate the influence of the belt layout on mechanical efficiency of the FEAD system. The second part of the series will focus exclusively on the operation of the alternator. Two main elements of the study are discussed.

Using a holistic 1D engine simulation approach for the modelling of full-transient engine operation, allows analyzing future engine concepts, including its exhaust gas aftertreatment technology, early in the development process. Thus, this approach enables the investigation of both important fields - the thermodynamic engine process and the aftertreatment system, together with their interaction in a single simulation environment. Regarding the aftertreatment system, the kinetic reaction behavior of state-of-the-art and advanced components, such as Diesel Oxidation Catalysts (DOC) or Selective Catalytic Reduction Soot Filters (SCRF), is being modelled. Furthermore, the authors present the use of the 1D engine and exhaust gas aftertreatment model on use cases of variable valve train (VVT) applications on passenger car (PC) diesel engines.

In-use compliance under LEV III emission standards, GHG, and fuel economy targets beyond 2025 poses a great opportunity for all ICE-based propulsion systems, especially for light-duty diesel powertrain and aftertreatment enhancement. Though diesel powertrains feature excellent fuel-efficiency, robust and complete emissions controls covering any possible operational profiles and duty cycles has always been a challenge. Significant dependency on aftertreatment calibration and configuration has become a norm. With the onset of hybridization and downsizing, small steps of improvement in system stability have shown a promising avenue for enhancing fuel economy while continuously improving emissions robustness. In this paper, a study of current key technologies and associated emissions robustness will be discussed followed by engine and aftertreatment performance target derivations for LEV III compliant powertrains.

The range of tasks in automotive electrical system development has clearly grown and now includes goals such as achieving efficiency requirements and complying with continuously reducing CO2 limits. Improvements in the vehicle electrical system, hereinafter referred to as the power net, are mandatory to face the challenges of increasing electrical energy consumption, new comfort and assistance functions, and further electrification. Novel power net topologies with dual batteries and dual voltages promise a significant increase in efficiency with moderate technological and financial effort. Depending on the vehicle segment, either an extension of established 12 V micro-hybrid technologies or 48 V mild hybridization is possible. Both technologies have the potential to reduce fuel consumption by implementing advanced stop/start and sailing functionalities.

In a move to curb vehicular pollution, Indian Government decided to bring forward the date for BSVI standards into effect from April 2020 while skipping the intermediate BSV stage. The plan to implement BSVI norms, which initially was scheduled for 2024 according to the National Auto Fuel Policy dated April 27, 2015, has now been slotted for April 2020. For particulate mass (PM) emissions to be brought down to the BS VI level (4.5mg/km), diesel passenger cars need to be fitted with a diesel particulate filter (DPF). The diesel particulate filter (DPF) is a device designed to remove soot from the exhaust gas of the diesel engine. DPF must be cleaned/regenerated from time to time else, it will block up. Optimized DPF calibration is the key for various challenges linked with its use as one of the effective PM reduction technology.

The Bharat Stage VI (BS-VI) emission legislation will come into force in 2020, posing a major engineering challenge in terms of system complexity, reliability, cost and development time. Solutions for the EURO VI on-road legislation in Europe, from which the BS-VI limits are derived, have been developed and have already been implemented. To a certain level these European solutions can be transferred to the Indian market. However, several market-specific challenges are yet to be defined and addressed. In addition, a very strict timeline has to be considered for application of advanced technologies and processes during the product development. In this paper, the emission roadmap will be introduced in the beginning, followed by a discussion of potential technology solutions on the engine itself as well as on the exhaust aftertreatment side. This includes boosting and fuel injection technologies as well as different exhaust gas recirculation methods.

A new approach is presented to modelling wall heat transfer in the exhaust port and manifold within 1D gas exchange simulation to ensure a precise calculation of thermal exhaust enthalpy. One of the principal characteristics of this approach is the partition of the exhaust process in a blow-down and a push-out phase. In addition to the split in two phases, the exhaust system is divided into several sections to consider changes in heat transfer characteristics downstream the exhaust valves. Principally, the convective heat transfer is described by the characteristic numbers of Nusselt, Reynolds and Prandtl. However, the phase individual correlation coefficients are derived from 3D CFD investigations of the flow in the exhaust system combined with Low-Re turbulence modelling. Furthermore, heat losses on the valve and the seat ring surfaces are considered by an empirical model approach.

Reducing fuel consumption is a major challenge for vehicle, especially for SUV. Cooling loss is about 30% in total energy loss under NEDC (New European Driving Cycle) cycle. It is necessary to optimize vehicle thermal management system to improve fuel economy. Otherwise, rapid warm-up is beneficial for friction reduction and passenger comfort in cold-start. Vehicle thermal behavior is influenced by cooling system layout, new technology and control strategy. Thermal management simulation is effective to show the energy flow and fuel consumption under the influence of new technology under NEDC cycle. So 1D thermal management simulation model is created, including vehicle, cooling system, lubrication system and detailed engine model with all friction components. And the interrelations between all the components are considered in the model. For model calibration, large amount of data is obtained from vehicle tests such as transient fuel consumption and transient coolant temperature.

Improvements in the efficiency of internal combustion engines has led to a reduction in exhaust gas temperatures. The simultaneous tightening of exhaust emission limits requires ever more complex emission control methods, including aftertreatment whose efficiency is crucially dependent upon the exhaust gas temperature. Double-walled (also called air-gap) exhaust manifold and turbine housing modules made from sheet metal have been used in gasoline engines since 2009. They offer the potential in modern Diesel engines to reduce both the emissions of pollutants and fuel consumption. They also offer advantages in terms of component weight and surface temperatures in comparison to cast iron components. A detailed analysis was conducted to investigate the potential advantages of insulated exhaust systems for modern diesel engines equipped with DOC and SCR coated DPF (SDPF).

Modifications have been made to the calibration and control of Diesel engines to increase the temperature of the exhaust especially in cold weather and part load operation. The main purpose for this advanced calibration is to enable the reduction of emissions by improving catalytic activity. An alternative method for increasing exhaust temperature is providing electric heat. Test results show the feasibility of applying various amounts of electric heat and the related increases in exhaust temperature as well as speed of heating. Simulation modeling extends the application of electric heat to a complete engine map and explores the potential impact on engine performance and emission reduction benefits.

As emission regulations are becoming increasingly stringent worldwide, multiple exhaust aftertreatment devices are considered in order to minimize diesel engine tailpipe emissions. For the typical diesel applications in developing markets like India, the fuel consumption is a very decisive selling argument for customers. The total cost of ownership needs to be as low as possible. To meet these competing requirements, the aftertreatment and engines must be optimized at the same time as the performance of the one system affects the other. In state-of-the-art calibration processes, the aftertreatment systems are considered separately from the calibration of the thermodynamics. This conventional approach makes it more challenging to achieve a simultaneous optimization of the fuel consumption and tailpipe emissions under transient operating conditions.