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Lawrence Livermore, Sandia Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratories have a joint project to develop an optimized hydrogen fueled engine for series hybrid automobiles. The major divisions of responsibility are: system analysis, engine design, and kinetics modeling by LLNL; performance and emission testing, and friction reduction by SNL; computational fluid mechanics and combustion modeling by LANL. This project is a component of the Department of Energy, Office of Utility Technology, National Hydrogen Program. We report here on the progress on system analysis and preliminary engine testing. We have done system studies of series hybrid automobiles that approach the PNGV design goal of 34 km/liter (80 mpg), for 384 km (240 mi) and 608 km (380 mi) ranges. Our results indicate that such a vehicle appears feasible using an optimized hydrogen engine. The impact of various on-board storage options on fuel economy are evaluated.

This paper describes a hybrid vehicle simulation model which can be applied to many of the vehicles currently being considered for low emissions and high fuel economy. The code operates in batch mode with all the vehicle information stored in data files. The code calculates power train dimensions, fuel economy for three driving schedules, time for 0 - 96 km/h at maximum acceleration, hill climbing performance, and emissions. This paper also documents the application of the code to a hybrid vehicle that utilizes a hydrogen internal combustion engine. The simulation model is used for parametric studies of the vehicle. The results show the fuel economy of the vehicle as a function of vehicle mass, aerodynamic drag, engine efficiency, accessory load, and flywheel efficiency. The code also calculates the minimum flywheel energy and power to obtain a desired performance.