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The current trend towards an increasing electrification of road vehicles brings to life a whole series of unprecedent design issues. Among these, the ageing process that affects the lifetime of lithium-ion based energy storage systems is of particular importance since it turns out to be extremely sensitive to the variation of battery operating conditions normally occurring especially in hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). This paper aims at analyzing the impact of operating conditions on the predicted lifetime of a parallel-through-the-road plug-in HEV battery both from thermal and ageing perspectives. The retained HEV powertrain architecture is presented first and modeled, and the related energy management system is implemented. Dedicated numerical models are also discussed for the high-voltage battery pack that allow predicting its thermal behavior and cyclic ageing.

The battery of a vehicle with an electrified powertrain (Hybrid Electric Vehicle or Battery Electric Vehicle), is required to operate with highly dynamic power outputs, both for charging and discharging operation. Consequently, the battery current varies within an extensive range during operation and the battery temperature also changes. In some cases, the relationship between the current flow and the change in the electrical energy stored seems to be affected by inefficiencies, in literature described as current losses, and nonlinearities, typically associated with the complex chemical and physical processes taking place in the battery. When calculating the vehicle electrical energy consumption over a trip, the change in the electrical energy stored at vehicle-level has to be taken into account. This quantity, what we could call the vehicle electricity balance, is typically obtained through a time-based integration of the battery current of all the vehicle batteries during operation.

Hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) powertrains are characterized by a complex design environment as a result of both the large number of possible layouts and the need for dedicated energy management strategies. When selecting the most suitable hybrid powertrain architecture at an early design stage of HEVs, engineers usually focus solely on fuel economy (directly linked to tailpipe emissions) and vehicle drivability performance. However, high voltage batteries are a crucial component of HEVs as well in terms of performance and cost. This paper introduces a multitarget assessment framework for HEV powertrain architectures which considers both fuel economy and battery lifetime. A multi-objective formulation of dynamic programming is initially presented as an off-line optimal HEV energy management strategy capable of predicting both fuel economy performance and battery lifetime of HEV powertrain layout options.

Active tire pressure control (ATPC) is an automatic central tire inflation system (CTIS), designed, prototyped, and tested at the Politecnico di Torino, which is aimed at improving the fuel consumption, safety, and drivability of passenger vehicles. The pneumatic layout of the system and the designed solution for on board integration are presented. The critical design choices are explained in detail and supported by experimental evidence. In particular, the results of experimental tests, including the characterizations of various pneumatic components in working conditions, have been exploited to obtain a design, which allows reliable performance of the system in a lightweight solution. The complete system has been tested to verify its dynamics, in terms of actuation time needed to obtain a desired pressure variation, starting from the current tire pressure, and to validate the design.

The selection and tuning of the Fuel Injection System (FIS) are among the most critical tasks for the automotive diesel engine design engineers. In fact, the injection strongly affects the combustion phenomena through which controlling a wide range of related issues such as pollutant emissions, combustion noise and fuel efficiency becomes feasible. In the scope of the engine design optimization, the simulation is an efficient tool in order to both predict the key performance parameters of the FIS, and to reduce the amount of experiments needed to reach the final product configuration. In this work a complete characterization of a solenoid ballistic injector for a Light-Duty Common Rail system was therefore implemented in a commercially available one-dimensional computational software called GT-SUITE. The main phenomena governing the injector operation were simulated by means of three sub-models (electro-magnetic, hydraulic and mechanical).

Nowadays, injection rate shaping and multi-pilot events can help to improve fuel efficiency, combustion noise and pollutant emissions in diesel engine, providing high flexibility in the shape of the injection that allows combustion process control. Different strategies can be used in order to obtain the required flexibility in the rate, such as very close pilot injections with almost zero Dwell Time or boot shaped injections with optional pilot injections. Modern Common-Rail Fuel Injection Systems (FIS) should be able to provide these innovative patterns to control the combustion phases intensity for optimal tradeoff between fuel consumption and emission levels.

One of the first steps in powertrain design is to assess its best performance and consumption in a virtual phase. Regarding hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), it is important to define the best mode profile through a cycle in order to maximize fuel economy. To assist in that task, several off-line optimization algorithms were developed, with Dynamic Programming (DP) being the most common one. The DP algorithm generates the control actions that will result in the most optimal fuel economy of the powertrain for a known driving cycle. Although this method results in the global optimum behavior, the DP tool comes with a high computational cost. The charge-sustaining requirement and the necessity of capturing extremely small variations in the battery state of charge (SOC) makes this state vector an enormous variable. As things move fast in the industry, a rapid tool with the same performance is required.

To comply with the stringent fuel consumption requirements, many automobile manufacturers have launched vehicle electrification programs which are representing a paradigm shift in vehicle design. Looking specifically at powertrain calibration, optimization approaches were developed to help the decision-making process in the powertrain control. Due to computational power limitations the most common approach is still the use of powertrain calibration tables in a rule-based controller. This is true despite the fact that the most common manual tuning can be quite long and exhausting, and with the optimal consumption behavior rarely being achieved. The present work proposes a simulation tool that has the objective to automate the process of tuning a calibration table in a powertrain model. To achieve that, it is first necessary to define the optimal reference performance.

When developing a new engine control strategy, some of the important issues are cost, resource minimization, and quality improvement. This paper outlines how a model based approach was used to develop an engine control strategy for an Extended Range Electric Vehicle (EREV). The outlined approach allowed the development team to minimize the required number of experiments and to complete much of the control development and calibration before implementing the control strategy in the vehicle. It will be shown how models of different fidelity, from map-based models, to mean value models, to 1-D gas dynamics models were generated and used to develop the engine control system. The application of real time capable models for Hardware-in-the-Loop testing will also be shown.

The sustainable use of energy and the reduction of pollutant emissions are main concerns of the automotive industry. In this context, Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs) offer significant improvements in the efficiency of the propulsion system and allow advanced strategies to reduce pollutant and noise emissions. The paper presents the results of a simulation study that addresses the minimization of fuel consumption, NOx emissions and combustion noise of a medium-size passenger car. Such a vehicle has a parallel-hybrid diesel powertrain with a high-voltage belt alternator starter. The simulation reproduces real-driver behavior through a dynamic modeling approach and actuates an automatic power split between the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) and the Electric Machine (EM). Typical characteristics of parallel hybrid technologies, such as Stop&Start, regenerative braking and electric power assistance, are implemented via an operating strategy that is based on the reduction of total losses.

Sustainable and energy-efficient consumption is a main concern in contemporary society. Driven by more stringent international requirements, automobile manufacturers have shifted the focus of development into new technologies such as Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs). These powertrains offer significant improvements in the efficiency of the propulsion system compared to conventional vehicles, but they also lead to higher complexities in the design process and in the control strategy. In order to obtain an optimum powertrain configuration, each component has to be laid out considering the best powertrain efficiency. With such a perspective, a simulation study was performed for the purpose of minimizing well-to-wheel CO2 emissions of a city car through electrification. Three different innovative systems, a Series Hybrid Electric Vehicle (SHEV), a Mixed Hybrid Electric Vehicle (MHEV) and a Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) were compared to a conventional one.

In mathematical and mechanical modeling terms, automotive seating is characterized by boundary conditions at the nonlinear contact interfaces. These contact interfaces are subjected to vibro-impacts (slaps) and frictional slips. The slaps occur in contact interfaces at high amplitude vibrations, being characterized by very short duration, rapid dissipation of energy and large accelerations and decelerations. By considering friction in contact interface modeling, the simulation of the interaction between the driver and the vehicle seat becomes more realistic. Vibro-impacts and frictional slips can be simultaneously developed in a contact surface. The boundary conditions identification for a seat and a wide range of drivers' body types is performed using the concept of interference distance or penetration. The interference distance is introduced as an optimization problem. It is shown that the optimization problem provides robust solutions to minimum distance and interference problems.

The aim of this work is the assessment of the predictive capabilities of fast running models, obtained through an appropriate reduction and simplification process from detailed 1D fluid-dynamic models, for a turbocharged s.i. engine under highly transient operating conditions. Simulations results have been compared with experimental data for different types of models, ranging from fully detailed 1D fluid-dynamic models to map-based models, quantifying the degradation of the model accuracy and the reduction in the computational time for different kinds of driving cycles, from moderately transient such as the NEDC to highly dynamic such as the US06.

This paper presents the methodology adopted by Politecnico di Torino Vehicle Dynamics Research Team to obtain objective indices for the evaluation of the comfort during the gear change process. Some test drivers and different passengers traveled on a test vehicle and assigned marks on the basis of their subjective feeling of comfort during the gearshifts. The comparison between the most significant subjective evaluations and the experimental values obtained by the instruments located on the vehicle is presented. As a consequence, some indices (based on physical parameters) to evaluate the efficiency and the comfort of the gearshift process are obtained. They are in good agreement with the subjective evaluations of the drivers and the passengers. The second part of the paper presents a driveline and vehicle model which was conceived to reproduce the phenomena experimented on the vehicle. The experimental validation of the model is presented.

H-due, a concept of light electric vehicle devoted to personal mobility, will here be presented. The main goals involve the creation of a low-noise, user-friendly, zero-emission vehicle, with a pleasant style. Its main features include high payload/vehicle mass ratio, electric energy supplied either by batteries or by fuel cell, innovative style aimed at transporting a driver and a passenger, chassis design to minimize cost of production, variable wheelbase. The paper presents the main ideas on which the vehicle design was based and summarizes the most important results obtained.

The paper focuses on the advantages of the diesel electric traction applied to military vehicles. In recent years electric cars developed mainly to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels and cut down the emissions. The reduction of fuel consumption, important for civil vehicles above all to reduce emissions and to lower costs, is important also for the military in order to increase vehicle autonomy. In addition, the interest for hybrid electric military vehicles is linked with vehicle packaging flexibility, on board power generation and stealth potential related to their abilities of silent movement. Among many possible layouts the optimum is considered to be hub mounted drive motors in each wheel [ 1 ]. This study shows the development of a demonstrator of an hybrid electric 4×4 military vehicle. It was carried out for a future extension of the technology to a 8×8 armoured vehicle.

Different hybrid powertrains for a European mid-size passenger car were evaluated in this paper through numerical simulation. Different degrees of hybridizations, from micro to mild hybrids, and different architectures and power sources management strategies were taken into account, in order to obtain a preliminary assessment of the potentialities of different hybrid systems for the European passenger car market. Both diesel and gasoline internal combustion engines were considered: a 1.6 dm₃ Common Rail turbocharged diesel, and a 1.4 dm₃ spark ignition turbocharged engine, equipped with an innovative Variable Valve Actuation system. Diesel hybrid powertrains, although being subject to NOx emissions constraints that could jeopardize their benefits, offered substantial advantages in comparison with gasoline hybrid powertrains. Potentialities for fuel consumption reductions up to 25% over the NEDC were highlighted, approaching the 2020 EU 95 g/km CO₂ target.

As in the standard American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) procedure which is used to evaluate the fuel Octane Number (ON), some signal properties are considered, while others are neglected, it happens that different pressure signals of the sensor, obtained from different fuels and operating conditions, can lead to the same Knock Intensity index (KI) value, even though the knock behavior is not the same. Therefore the aim of this work was to analyze the standard signal processing chain of the Cooperative Fuel Research engine (CFR) (from the pressure sensor to the knock-meter display) and its effects on the value of the KI, for different fuels and operating conditions.

H-ergo, a concept of light electric vehicle devoted to personal mobility, will here be presented. H-ergo is a low-noise, user-friendly, zero-emission vehicle, with a pleasant style. Its main features include high payload/vehicle mass ratio, electric energy supplied either by batteries or by fuel cell, ergonomic style in order to transport a driver or a person whit mobility problems, chassis design to minimize cost of production, variable wheelbase (through electric actuator). The paper presents the main ideas on which the vehicle design was based and summarizes the most important results obtained.

Electric scooters are suited to mobility in zones with environmental traffic limitations, and particularly for city centers with very poor room for parking. Aim of this paper is the illustration of the performance that can be obtained from a purposely designed electric scooter. The features of the main components of the scooter driveline: battery package, converter, motor and control will be described.