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In recent years, the burgeoning applications of hydrogen fuel cells have ignited a growing trend in their integration within the transportation sector, with a particular focus on their potential use in multi-rotor drones. The heightened mass-based energy density of fuel cells positions them as promising alternatives to current lithium battery-powered drones, especially as the demand for extended flight durations increases. This article undertakes a comprehensive exploration, comparing the performance of lithium batteries against air-cooled fuel cells, specifically within the context of multi-rotor drones with a 3.5kW power requirement. The study reveals that, for the specified power demand, air-cooled fuel cells outperform lithium batteries, establishing them as a more efficient solution.

With the continuous popularization of electric vehicles (EVs), ensuring the best performance of EVs has become a significant concern, and lithium-ion power batteries are considered as the essential storage and conversion equipment for EVs. Therefore, it is of great significance to quickly evaluate the state of power batteries. This paper investigates a fast state estimation method of power batteries oriented to after-sales and maintenance. Based on the battery equivalent circuit model and heuristics optimization algorithm, the battery model parameters, including the internal ohmic and polarization resistance, can be identified using only 30 minutes of charging or discharging process data without full charge or discharge. At the same time, the proposed method can directly estimate the state of charge (SOC) and maximum available capacity of the battery without knowing initial SOC information.

The formation is a crucial step in the production process of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), during which the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) is formed on the surface of the anode particles to passivate the electrode. It determines the performance of the battery, including its capacity and lifetime. A meticulously designed formation protocol is essential to regulate and optimize the stability of the SEI, ultimately achieving the optimal performance of the battery. Current research on formation protocols in lithium-ion batteries primarily focuses on temperature, current, and voltage windows. However, there has been limited investigation into the influence of different initial pressures on the formation process, and the evolution of cell pressure during formation remains unclear. In this study, a pressure-assisted formation device for lithium-ion pouch cells is developed, equipped with pressure sensors.

The optimization of speed holds critical significance for pure electric vehicles. In multi-intersection scenarios, the determination of terminal velocity plays a crucial role in addressing the complexities of the speed optimization problem. However, prevailing methodologies documented in the literature predominantly adhere to a fixed speed constraint derived from traffic light regulations, serving as the primary basis for the terminal velocity constraint. Nevertheless, this strategy can result in unnecessary acceleration and deceleration maneuvers, consequently leading to an undesirable escalation in energy consumption. To mitigate these issues and attain an optimal terminal velocity, this paper proposes an innovative speed optimization method that incorporates a terminal-velocity heuristic. Firstly, a traffic light state model is established to determine the speed range required to avoid coming to a stop at signalized intersections.

As one of the pollutants that cannot be ignored, soot has a great impact on human health, environment, and energy conversion. In this investigation, the effect of residence time (25ms, 35ms, and 45ms) and ammonia on morphology and nanostructure of soot in laminar ethylene flames has been studied under atmospheric conditions and different flame heights (15 mm and 30 mm). The transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high-resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM) are used to obtain morphology of aggregates and nanostructure of primary particles, respectively. In addition, to analyze the nanostructure of the particles, an analysis program is built based on MATLAB software, which is able to obtain the fringe separation distance, fringe length, and fringe tortuosity parameters of primary particles, and has been verified by the multilayer graphene interlayer distance.

The problem of keeping the stable starting performance of diesel engine under high altitude and low temperature conditions has been done a lot of research in the field of diesel engine, but there is a lack of research on extreme conditions such as above 2000 meters above sea level and below 0°C. Aiming at solving the cold start problem of diesel engine in extreme environment, a set of chamber system of cold start environment diesel engine was constructed to simulate environment of 3000m altitude and -20°C. A series of experimental research was conducted on cold start efficiency optimization strategy of a certain type of diesel engine at 3000m altitude and -20°C. In parallel, a diesel engine model was constructed through Chemkin to explore the influence of the three parameters of compression ratio, stroke length, and fuel injection advance angle on the first cold start cycle of diesel engine at 4000m altitude and -20°C.

Argon Power Cycle (APC) is an innovative future potential power system for high efficiency and zero emissions, which employs an Ar-O2 mixture rather than air as the working substance. However, APC hydrogen engines face the challenge of knock suppression. Compared to hydrogen, methane has a better anti-knock capacity and thus is an excellent potential fuel for APC engines. In previous studies, the methane is injected into the intake port. Nevertheless, for lean combustion, the stratified in-cylinder mixture formed by methane direct injection has superior combustion performances. Therefore, based on a methane direct injection engine at compression ratio = 9.6 and 1000 r/min, this study experimentally investigates the effects of replacing air by an Ar-O2 mixture (79%Ar+21%O2) on thermal efficiencies, loads, and other combustion characteristics under different excess oxygen ratios. Meanwhile, the influences of varying the methane injection timing are studied.

Hydrogen energy is a kind of secondary energy with an abundant source, wide application, green, and is low-carbon, which is important for building a clean, low-carbon, safe, and efficient energy system and achieving the goal of carbon peaking and being carbon neutral. In this paper, the effect of nozzle position, hydrogen injection timing, and ignition timing on the in-cylinder combustion characteristics is investigated separately with the 13E hydrogen engine as the simulation object. The test results show that when the nozzle position is set in the middle of the intake and exhaust tracts (L2 and L3), the peak in-cylinder pressure is slightly higher than that of L1, but when the nozzle position is L2, the cylinder pressure curve is the smoothest, the peak exothermic rate is the lowest, and the peak cylinder temperature is the lowest.

Fuel cells’ soft output characteristics and mismatched voltage levels with subordinate electrical devices necessitate the use of DC/DC converters, which are an important part of the power electronic subsystem of the fuel cell system. The staggered parallel Boost topology is commonly employed in fuel cell DC/DC converters. This paper focuses on the control characteristics of the two-phase interleaved parallel Boost topology in the context of a fuel cell system. Specifically, we derive the small-signal model and output-control transfer function of the topology, and design a controller based on frequency characteristic analysis. Our proposed controller uses a cascaded double-ring structure and supports both constant current and constant voltage switching modes. To evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed control strategy, we conduct simulation and prototype testing.

The Chinese government and industries have proposed strategic plans and policies for automotive renewable-energy transformation in response to China’s commitments to peak the national carbon emissions before 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. We thus analyze the evolution of carbon emissions from the vehicle fleet in China with our data-driven models based on these plans. Our results indicate that the vehicle life-cycle carbon emissions are appreciable, accounting for 8.9% of the national total and 11.3% of energy combustion in 2020. Commercial vehicles are the primary source of automotive carbon emissions, accounting for about 60% of the vehicle energy cycle. Among these, heavy-duty trucks are the most important, producing 38.99% of the total carbon emissions in the vehicle operation stage in 2020 and 52.18% in 2035.

To study the cold start of muti-stack fuel cell system (MFCS), a novel thermal management subsystem structure and corresponding cold start strategies are proposed. Firstly, leveraging the distinctive configuration of the MFCS that can be sequentially initiated, we augmented the existing thermal management subsystem with the incorporation of two additional collection valves and two bypass diverter valves, which affords an increased degree of flexibility in the formulation of cold-start strategies. Secondly, we innovatively propose a hierarchical auxiliary heating cold start strategy and an average auxiliary heating cold start tailored for MFCS consisting of power levels of 20 kW, 70 kW, and 120 kW. Furthermore, we have developed a controller to address temperature control challenges during the start-up process.

Alternating current (AC) heating is an efficient and homogeneous manner to warm Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) up. The integrated design of AC heating combined with the motor drive circuit has been studied by many scholars. However, the problems of excessive heating frequency (>1kHz) and zeros torque output of the motor during the heating process have not been solved. High-frequency AC excitation may be detrimental to the battery because the effect of high-frequency AC excitation on the state of health of the battery is unknown. In addition, although the zero-torque output can be realized by controlling the q-axis current to zero, the torque ripple is still difficult to eliminate in a real-world application. To further solve the above problems, the motor’s neutral conductor is pulled out and connected to a large capacitor to increase the current amplitude of the AC heating at low frequencies.

To overcome the shortcoming that vehicles with multiple steering modes need to switch steering modes at parking or very low speeds, a dynamic switch method of steering modes based on MOEA/D (Multi-objective Evolutionary Algorithm Based on Decomposition) was proposed for 4WID-4WIS (Four Wheel Independent Drive-Four Wheel Independent Steering) electric vehicle, considering the smoothness of dynamic switch, the lateral stability of the vehicle and the energy economy of tires. First of all, the vehicle model of 4WID-4WIS was established, and steering modes were introduced and analyzed. Secondly, the conditions for the dynamic switch of steering modes were designed with the goal of stability and safety. According to different constraints, the control strategy was formulated to obtain the target angle of the active wheels. Then aiming at the smoothness of the dynamic switch, the active wheel angle trajectory was constructed based on the B-spline theory.

With the continuous upgrading of emission regulations, NOx emission limit is becoming more and more strict, especially in the cold start phase. Passive NOx absorber (PNA) can adsorb NOx at a relatively low exhaust temperature, electrically heated catalyst (EHC) has great potential to improve exhaust gas temperature and reduce pollutant emissions of diesel engines at cold start conditions, while experimental research on the combined use of these two kinds of catalysts and the coupling mode of the electrically heated catalyst and the aftertreatment system under the cold start condition are lacking. In this paper, under a certain cold start and medium-high temperature phase, the exhaust gas temperature and emission characteristics of PNA, EHC and aftertreatment system under different coupling modes were studied.

Combustion diagnostics of highly diluted mixtures are essential for the estimation of the combustion quality, and control of combustion timing in advanced combustion systems. In this paper, a novel fast response flame detection technique based on active plasma is introduced and investigated. Different from the conventional ion current sensing used in internal combustion engines, a separate electrode gap is used in the detecting probing. Further, the detecting voltage across the electrode gap is modulated actively using a multi-coil system to be slightly below the breakdown threshold before flame arrival. Once the flame front arrives at the probe, the ions on the flame front tend to decrease the breakdown voltage threshold and trigger a breakdown event. Simultaneous electrical and optical measurements are employed to investigate the flame detecting efficacy via active plasma probing under both quiescent and flow conditions.

The application of Li(Ni0.8Co0.1Mn0.1)O2 (NCM811) cathode-based lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) has alleviated electric vehicle range anxiety. However, the subsequent thermal safety issues limit their market acceptance. A detailed analysis of the failure evolution process for large-format LIBs is necessary to address the thermal safety issue. In this study, prismatic cells with nominal capacities of 144Ah and 125Ah are used to investigate the thermal runaway (TR) characteristics triggered by lateral overheating. Additionally, TR characteristics under two states of charge (SoCs) (100% and 5%) are discussed. Two cells with 100% SoC exhibit similar characteristics, including high failure temperature, high inhomogeneity of temperature distribution, multi-points jet fire, and significant mass loss. Two cells with 5% SoC demonstrate only a slight rupture of the safety valve and the emission of white smoke.

Aiming at the problems of ineffective collision avoidance and vehicle instability in the process of vehicle emergency braking in road conditions with low adhesion and sudden change in adhesion coefficient, a stability-coordinated emergency braking and collision avoidance control system SEBCACS) is proposed. First, according to the motion of the ego vehicle and the target vehicle as well as the road adhesion conditions, a collision time model is proposed for evaluating the vehicle collision risk, and the expected deceleration required to avoid the collision is calculated. Then, the MPC method is used to calculate the yaw moment generated by the four-wheel braking force required to maintain vehicle stability according to the actual and reference yaw rate and side slip angle deviation. Then it is decided whether to implement additional yaw moment control according to the body stability evaluation results.

As a newly designed hybrid transmission, DHT (Dedicated Hybrid Transmission) owns the advantages of compact structure, multi-modes and excellent comprehensive performance. Compared with the traditional add-on hybrid transmission with one single motor, DHT uses one independent generator for engine starting and speed adjusting which can be largely improve the driving performance in the mode changing process. Based on the series-parallel DHT with wet clutch for power coupling, this paper firstly analyses the power coupling clutch device functionalities from the power flow viewpoint under normal and limp home condition. And for the changing process from series to parallel mode, a clutch coordination control strategy is designed by combining generator fast speed adjusting with clutch accurately pressure controlling to fulfill the fast driver intension response and clutch protection.

Battery safety issues have severely limited the rapid development and popularization of electric vehicles. Harsh conditions such as high temperature accelerate the degradation of battery safety. To address this issue, a comprehensive analysis of the impact of high-temperature cyclic aging on lithium-ion battery safety is carried out. In the Accelerating Rate Calorimeter, lithium-ion batteries are performed on adiabatic thermal runaway tests and overcharge tests. Regardless of the fully-charged state or half-charged state, in the adiabatic thermal runaway process, high-temperature cyclic aging reduces the characteristic temperature, and the activation energy from the self-heating temperature to thermal runaway triggering temperature decreases. During the overcharge process, high-temperature cyclic aging increases the voltage plateau and the crest voltage before thermal runaway, and their corresponding charging temperature decreases.

Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) require multiple components to operate properly, and the fuel cell stack—the source of power—is one of the most important components. While the number of enterprises manufacturing and selling fuel cell stacks is increasing globaly year after year, the residual challenges of core components and technologies still need to be resolved in order to keep pace with the development of lithium-ion batteries (i.e., its primary competitor). Additionally, many production and distribution standards are seen as unsettled. These barriers make large-scale commercialization an issue. Use of Proton-exchange Membrane Fuel Cells in Ground Vehicles explores the opportunities and challenges within the PEMFC industry. With the help of expert contributors, a critical overview of fuel cells and the FCEV industry is presented, and core technology, applications, costs, and trends are analyzed.