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It’s not easy to start the engine in winter, especially in frigid highlands, because the low temperature increases the fuel’s viscosity, decreasing the lubricating oil flow ability and the storage performance of battery. Current electrical heating method can improve the engine starting performance in low temperature condition, but this method adds an external power to the engine, leading to the engine cannot maintain an efficient energy utilization. A warming device using the solar energy is designed to conserve the energy during the daytime, and directly warm up the engine at the time when the engine turns off for a long time, especially during the night. A solar collector installed on the top of the vehicle is used to convert the solar energy to the thermal energy, which is then transferred to the heat accumulator that contain the phase-change medium which can increase the heat storage performance.

The hydraulic retarder is the most stabilized auxiliary braking system [1-2] of heavy-duty vehicles. When the hydraulic retarder is working during auxiliary braking, all of the braking energy is transferred into the thermal energy of the transmission medium of the working wheel. Theoretically, the residual heat-sinking capability of the engine could be used to cool down the transmission medium of the hydraulic retarder, in order to ensure the proper functioning of the hydraulic retarder. Never the less, the hydraulic retarder is always placed at the tailing head of the gearbox, far from the engine, long cooling circuits, which increases the risky leakage risk of the transmission medium. What's more, the development trend of heavy load and high speed vehicle directs the significant increase in the thermal load of the hydraulic retarder, which even higher than the engine power.

The hydraulic retarder is an important auxiliary braking device for the heavy vehicle, which has some characteristics, such as the big brake torque and long duration braking, when the vehicle is traveling in braking state. However, the transmission power loss will be produced when the vehicle is traveling in non-braking state. This transmission power loss is called Air-friction. Firstly, the air flow distribution characteristics of retarder cavity are studied by computational fluid mechanics, and the Air-friction characteristic in different conditions is analyzed. Then, according to the Air-friction characteristics for the condition of different filling density, a set of vacuum air loss reduction system is designed. Meanwhile, the test bench for retarder Air-friction is set up, the test data of the revolution speed, pressure in cavity and air loss resistance is obtained according to the test bench for hydraulic retarder.

The hydraulic retarder is a significant auxiliary braking device [1] for the heavy duty vehicle. Traditionally, cooling circulatory system of the hydraulic retarder was coupled with the engine cooling system [2], and the thermal energy of the transmission medium would be cooled by the engine radiator ultimately. For this scheme, radiator's spare heat removal capacity could be fully utilized whereas the cooling system is very complicated and is hard to maintain. Furthermore, the corresponding of thermal management system lags behind the power change of the retarder. In this research, integrated cooling evaporation system is developed for the hydraulic retarder, which makes the cooling water contact with the transmission medium through the stator wall, so that it can rapidly response to the thermal variation of the retarder, keep the stability of the oil temperature and meanwhile reduce the risk of cooling medium leakage.

To make full use of engine exhaust heat and further improve the utilization of the energy efficiency of the heavy truck, thermoelectric module is used to contribute to thermoelectric power generation. The hot-end temperature of the module varies with the engine operating condition because it is connected with the exhaust pipe. The cold-end of the thermoelectric module is mainly cooled by engine cooling system. Increasing the temperature difference between the hot-end and cold-end of the thermoelectric module is a good way to improve the thermoelectric conversion efficiency. For the poor controllability of the hot-end temperature of the thermoelectric module, this study puts forward by lowering the cold-end temperature of the thermoelectric module so as to ensure the improvement of the thermoelectric conversion efficiency. The cooling circle for the cold-end of the thermoelectric module which is independent of the engine cooling system is built.