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A passive thermal management system (TMS) using composite phase change material (PCM) for large-capacity, rectangular lithium-ion batteries is designed. A battery module consisting of six Li-ion cells connected in series was investigated as a basic unit. The passive TMS for the module has three configurations according to the contact area between cells and the composite PCM, i.e., surrounding, front-contacted and side-contacted schemes. Firstly, heat generation rate of the battery cell was calculated using the Bernardi equation based on experimentally measured heat source terms (i.e. the internal resistance and the entropy coefficient). Physical and thermal properties such as density, phase change temperature, latent heat and thermal conductivity of the composite PCM were also obtained by experimental methods. Thereafter, thermal response of the battery modules with the three TMS configurations was simulated using 3D finite element analysis (FEA) modeling in ANSYS Fluent.

Wireless charging system for vehicular power batteries is becoming more and more popular. As one of important issues, charging power regulation is indispensable for online control, especially when the distance or angle between chassis and ground changes. This paper proposes a novel power regulation method named Z-Source-Based Pulse-Amplitude-Modulation (ZSB-PAM), which has not been mentioned in the literatures yet. The ZSB-PAM employs a unique impedance network (two pairs of inductors and capacitors connected in X shape) to couple the cascaded H Bridge to the power source. By controlling the shoot-through state of H bridge, the input voltage to H bridge can be boosted, thus the transmitter current can be adjusted, and hence, charging current and power for batteries. A LCL-LCL resonant topology is adopted as the main transfer energy carrier, for it can work with a unity power factor and have the current source characteristic which is suitable for battery charging.

Due to coupling of in-wheel motor and wheel/tire, the electric wheel system of in-wheel motor driven vehicle is different from tire suspension system of internal combustion engine vehicle both in the excitation source and structural dynamics. Therefore emerging dynamic issues of electric wheel arouse attention. Longitudinal vibration problem of electric wheel system in starting condition is studied in this paper. Vector control system of permanent magnet synchronous hub motor considering dead-time effect of the inverter is primarily built. Then coupled longitudinal-torsional vibration model of electric wheel system is established based on rigid ring model and dynamic tire/road interface. Inherent characteristics of this model are further analyzed. The vibration responses of electric wheel system are simulated by combining electromagnetic torque and the vibration model. The results indicate that abrupt changes of driving torque will cause transient vibration of electric wheel system.

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) with relatively high energy, power density and eco-friendly characteristic are considered as a vital energy source in consumer market of portable electronics and transportation sector especially in electric vehicles (EVs). To meet the higher capacity requirements, the nickel-rich LIBs with higher capacity has been used as the commercial power batteries. However, the battery with higher energy density is more destructive, which could result in thermal runaway accidents and make the battery safety issues become more and more prominent. Thermal runaway of LIBs is one of the key scientific problems in safety issues. Until now, the inducement of thermal runaway process is complicated which perplex researchers and industry a lot. On the one hand, the internal mechanism about thermal runaway should be deeply studied. On the other hand, in-situ monitoring should be developed to supply the mechanism study and early warning.

In order to study the fast filling problem of large-capacity on-board hydrogen storage tank for highway passenger cars, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation model of 134L large-capacity hydrogen storage tank was established. By simulating different pre-cooling temperatures and mass flow rates, the temperature distribution and thermal transmission in the tank were observed. Due to the large ratio of length to diameter of the hydrogen tank, the temperature distribution is extremely uneven during the whole filling process, and the high temperature area is mainly concentrated in the tank tail. And the heat transfer between the gas and the tank wall is not obvious under the low and constant mass flow rate. The temperature rise process during the whole filling process under different mass flow conditions was simulated to satisfy the highest safe temperature limit.

Fuel cell vehicles (FCV) have become a promising transportation tool because of their high efficiency, fast response and zero-emission. However, the cold start problem is one of the main obstacles to limit the further commercialization of FCV in cold weather countries. Many efforts have made to improve the cold start ability. This review presents comprehensive heating methods and influence factors of the research progress in solving the Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC) system cold start problems with more than 100 patents, papers and reports, which may do some help for PEMFC system cold start from the point of practical utilization. Firstly, recent achievements and goals will be summarized in the introduction part. Then, regarding the heating strategies for the PEMFC system cold start, different heating solutions are classified into self-heating strategies and auxiliary-heating heating depending on their heating sources providing approach.

Tracking vehicle trajectories is essential for autonomous vehicles and advanced driver-assistance systems to understand traffic environment and evaluate collision risk. In order to reduce the position deviation and fluctuation of tracking on-road vehicle by millimeter-wave radar (MMWR), an interactive multi-model Kalman filter (IMM-KF) tracking algorithm including data association and track management is proposed. In general, it is difficult to model the target vehicle accurately due to lack of vehicle kinematics parameters, like wheel base, uncertainty of driving behavior and limitation of sensor’s field of view. To handle the uncertainty problem, an interacting multiple model (IMM) approach using Kalman filters is employed to estimate multitarget’s states. Then the compensation of radar ego motion is achieved, since the original measurement is under the radar polar coordinate system.

Engine start while driving is one of the most typical and frequent work conditions for hybrid vehicles. Engine start has very significant impact on the driving comfort. Engine start, especially a dynamical engine start, have high control requirements regarding control time, torque output and riding comfort. In some hybrid transmissions such as P2, engine is cranked and synchronized through wet clutch slipping. Because clutch pressure control has time-varying delay and estimation precision of engine torque by ECU (Engine Control Unit) is poor, conventional PID controller is unable to meet the high requirements of control quality. A new control algorithm is proposed in this paper to cope with all these challenges. The new control algorithm is based on LADRC (Linear Active Disturbance Rejection Controller) and is improved through combination with Smith predictor and Adaline network. LADRC is adopted to reduce negative effects of poor precision of engine torque.

With the increasing worldwide concern on environmental pollution, battery electrical vehicles (BEV) have attracted a lot attention. However, it still couldn’t satisfy the market requirements because of the low battery power density, high cost and long charging time. The range-extended electrical vehicle (REEV) got more attention because it could avoid the mileage anxiety of the BEVs with lower cost and potentially higher efficiency. When internal combustion engine (ICE) works as the power source of range extender (RE) for REEV, its NVH, emissions in starting process need to be optimized. In this paper, a 2-cylinder PFI gasoline engine and a permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) are coaxially connected. Meanwhile, batteries and load systems were equipped. The RE co-control system was developed based on Compact RIO (Compact Reconfigurable IO), Labview and motor control unit (MCU).

The thermophysical parameters and amount of composite phase change materials (PCMs) have decisive influence on the thermal control effects of thermal management systems (TMSs). At the same time, the various thermophysical parameters of the composite PCM are interrelated. For example, increasing the thermal conductivity is bound to mean a decrease in the latent heat of phase change, so a balance needs to be achieved between these parameters. In this paper, a prismatic LiFePO4 battery cell cooled by composite PCM is comprehensively analyzed by changing the phase change temperature, thermal conductivity and amount of composite PCM. The influence of the composite PCM parameters on the cooling and temperature homogenization effect of the TMS is analyzed. which can give useful guide to the preparation of composite PCMs and design of the heat transfer enhancement methods for TMSs.

For an electric vehicle driven by four in-wheel motors, the torque of each wheel can be controlled precisely and independently. A closed-loop control method of differential drive assisted steering (DDAS) has been proposed to improve vehicle steering properties based on those advantages. With consideration of acceleration requirement, a three dimensional characteristic curve that indicates the relation between torque and angle of the steering wheel at different vehicle speeds was designed as a basis of the control system. In order to deal with the saturation of motor's output torque under certain conditions, an anti-windup PI control algorithm was designed. Simulations and vehicle tests, including pivot steering test, lemniscate test and central steering test were carried out to verify the performance of the DDAS in steering portability and road feeling.

Real-time interaction between a driver and the simulator is problematic. In this study, the racing car driving simulator has been established, which is composed of the following functional components: Motion Controller, Simview, Scenario Editor, Application Programmer Interface (APIs) and Crash Simulation. With TCP/IP protocol, the Motion Controller receives driver's manipulation, road unevenness and crash situation of Simview, then generates motion streams that reflecting the current conditions, and sends them to Simview and to the hydraulic platform. Furthermore, by detecting and analyzing general vehicle two-dimensional impact, a kind of complete and applicable calculation method has been established, and complicated vehicle impacts can be analyzed accurately. This racecar driving simulator places a racing driver in a interactive environment, and provides the driver with high-fidelity motion, visual, auditory, and force feedback cues.

Biomechanics and biodynamics are increasingly focused on the automotive industry to provide comfortable driving environment, reduce driver fatigue, and improve passenger safety. Man-centered conception is a growing emphasis on the open design of automobile. During the long-term driving, occupational drivers are easily exposed to the neck pain, so it is important to reduce the muscle force load and its fatigue, which are not usually considered quantitatively during traditional ergonomics design, so standards related are not well developed to guide the vehicle design; On the other hand, the head-neck models are always built based on the statics theory, these are not sufficient to predict the instantaneous variation of the muscle force. In this paper, a head-neck model with multi DOFs is created based on multibody dynamics. Firstly, a driver-vehicle-road model considering driver multi-rigid body model, vehicle subsystems, and different ranks of pavement is built.

Beamforming techniques are widely used today in aeroacoustic wind tunnels to identify wind noise sources generated by interaction between incoming flow and the test object. In this study, a planar spiral microphone array with 120 channels was set out-of-flow at 1:1 aeroacoustic wind tunnel of Shanghai Automotive Wind Tunnel Center (SAWTC) to test exterior wind noise sources of a production car. Simultaneously, 2 reference microphones were set in vehicle interior to record potential sound source signal near the left side view mirror triangle and the signal of driver’s ear position synchronously. In addition, a spherical array with 48 channels was set inside the vehicle to identify interior noise sources synchronously as well. With different correlation methods and an advanced algorithm CLEAN-SC, the ranking of contributions of vehicle exterior wind noise sources to interested interior noise locations was accomplished.

As is known to all, the structure of the chassis has been greatly simplified as the application of in-wheel motor in electric vehicle (EV) and distributed control is allowed. The micro EV can alleviate traffic jams, reduce the demand for motor and battery capacity due to its small size and light weight and accordingly solve the problem that in-wheel motor is limited by inner space of the wheel hub. As a result, this type of micro EV is easier to be recognized by the market. In the micro EV above, two seats are side by side and the battery is placed in the middle of the chassis. Besides, in-wheel motors are mounted on the rear axle and only front axle retains traditional hydraulic braking system. Based on this driving/braking system, distribution of braking torque, system reliability and braking intensity is analyzed in this paper.

With the development of automotive HMI and mobile internet, many interactive modes are available for drivers to fulfill the in-vehicle secondary tasks, e.g. dialing, volume adjustment, music playing. For driving safety and drivers’ high expectation for HMI, it is urgent to effectively evaluate interactive mode with good efficiency, safety and good user experience for each secondary tasks, e.g. steering wheel buttons, voice control. This study uses a static driving simulation cockpit to provide driving environment, and sets up a high-fidelity driving cockpit based on OKTAL SacnerStudio and three-dimensional modeling technology. The secondary tasks supported by HMI platform are designed by customer demands research. The secondary task test is carried out based on usability test theory, and the influence on driving safety by different interactive modes is analyzed.

Based on the emergency lane change cases extracted from the China naturalistic driving data, the driving steering behavior divides into three phases: collision avoidance, lateral movement and steering stabilization. Using the steering primitive fitting by Gaussian function, the distribution of the duration time, the relationship between steering wheel rate and deflection were analyzed in three phases. It is shown that the steering behavior essentially is composed of steering primitives during the emergency lane-change. However, the combination of the steering primitives is different according to the specific steering constraints in three phases. In the collision avoidance phase, a single steering primitive with high peak is used for the fast steering; in the lateral movement and stabilization phase, a combination of two or even more steering primitives is built to a more accurate steering.

Recent years, electric vehicles (EVs) have been widely used as urban transit buses in China, but high costs and a dwindling driving distance caused mainly by relatively frequent usage rate have put the electric bus in a difficult position. Range-extended electric bus (REEbus) is taken as an ideal transitional powertrain configuration, but its efficiency is not so high. Besides, with less batteries to endure more frequently charging and discharging, the lifecycle of battery pack can also be shorten. Aiming at it, range-extended electric powertrains with diverse energy storage systems (ESSs) and proper auxiliary power unit (APU) control strategies are matched and compared to find most proper ESS configuration for REEbus through simulation, which is based on a 12 meter-long urban bus.

Driving posture study is essential for the evaluation of the occupant packaging. This paper presents a method of reconstructing driver’s postures in a real vehicle using a 3D laser scanner and Human Builder (HB), the digital human modeling tool under CATIA. The scanning data was at first converted into the format readable by CATIA, and then a personalized HB manikin was generated mainly using stature, sitting height and weight. Its pelvis position and joint angles were manually adjusted so as to match the manikin with the scan envelop. If needed, a fine adjustment of some anthropometric dimensions was also preceded. Finally the personalized manikin was put in the vehicle coordinate system, and joint angels and joint positions were extracted for further analysis.

As one of the most crucial components in electric vehicles, power batteries generate abundant heat during charging and discharging processes. Thermal management system (TMS), which is designed to keep the battery cells within an optimum temperature range and to maintain an even temperature distribution from cell to cell, is vital for the high efficiency, long calendar life and reliable safety of these power batteries. With the desirable features of low system complexity, light weight, high energy efficiency and good battery thermal uniformity, thermal management using composite phase change materials (PCMs) has drawn great attention in the past fifteen years. In the hope of supplying helpful guidelines for the design of the PCM-based TMSs, this work begins with the summarization of the most commonly applied heat transfer enhancement methods (i.e., the use of thermally conductive particles, metal fin, expanded graphite matrix and metal foam) for PCMs by different researchers.