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To reduce the heating energy consumption of electric vehicles in winter, a switching control strategy for multiple heating modes formed by three heat sources, including air, motor waste heat, and positive temperature coefficient (PTC) heaters, is designed. Firstly, an integrated thermal management system (ITMS) simulation model for the heat pump air conditioning system, battery thermal management system, and motor thermal management system is established based on the AMESim software. Secondly, the influence of ambient temperature and motor outlet coolant temperature on the heating performance of three cabin heating modes is studied. Specifically, the three cabin heating modes include the pure motor waste heat source heat pump mode, the pure air-source heat pump mode, and the dual heat source heat pump mode with waste heat source and air source. Based on the analysis results, the opening and closing strategies for the three cabin heating modes are discussed.

In automobiles, Integrated Starter Generators (ISGs) are important components since they ensure significant fuel economy improvements. With motors that operate at high voltage such as ISGs, it is important to accurately know partial discharge inception voltages (PDIVs) for the assured insulation reliability of the motors. However, the PDIVs vary due to various factors including the environment (temperature, atmospheric pressure and humidity), materials (water absorption and degradation) and voltage waveforms. Consequently, it is not easy either empirically or analytically to ascertain the PDIVs in a complex environment (involving, for example, high temperature, low atmospheric pressure and high humidity) in which many factors vary simultaneously, as with invehicle environments. As a well-known method, PDIVs can be analyzed in terms of two voltage values, which are the breakdown voltage of the air (called “Paschen curve”) and the shared voltage of the air layer.

As the main power source of new energy vehicles, the durability and fatigue characteristics of the battery pack directly affect the performance of the vehicle. The battery pack system was modelled using multi-body dynamics software, with 7 and 13 degree of freedom models developed. Using the established model, the intrinsic properties of the battery pack are computationally analyzed. To calculate the dynamic characteristics, a sinusoidal displacement excitation is applied to the wheel centre of mass, and the displacement and acceleration of the battery pack centre of mass are calculated for both models.The displacement and acceleration curves at the centre of mass of the battery pack of the two models are compared. The results show that the amplitude of the displacement and acceleration curves at the centre of mass of the 13 degrees of freedom model of the battery pack has decreased significantly.

Global exhaust emission regulations are becoming stricter, and vehicles equipped with the idle stop system (ISS) are increasing. Recently, starters for vehicles equipped with ISS are required to improve operation feel when speedily restarted. To satisfy this demand, starters must rotate at higher rotational speeds, and heavier wear in their brushes may cause problems. Tribofilm formed on commutators surface by the brush sliding is an important factor in the brush commutator wear, because tribofilm is said to have a property to increase lubricity and decrease mechanical wear in brushes and commutator, as well as to improve commutation and decrease arc wear. Therefore, for reducing brush commutator wear, it is considered effective to promote film formation by improving materials. However, few researches have been conducted to evaluate the relationship between brush materials and tribofilm formation.

Considering the interaction between fan blades and the surrounding air when a cooling fan rotates, the Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) model of the fan is established, and flow rate, static pressure, efficiency versus speed of the fan are calculated and analyzed. The aerodynamic performance of the fan is carried out, and the measured performance parameters are compared with calculated to validate the developed model. Using the established model, the performance of fans with different rotating speeds, diameters and blade installation angles is calculated. The effects of fan speed, diameter and blade installation angle on blade deformation and aerodynamic performance are studied.

In the manufacturing of battery boxes using the aluminum extruded process, poor consistency of products and a short life of the die for making aluminum structural sections are usually observed. A new method of producing battery boxes is proposed that combines steel stamped and aluminum extruded process. This paper first describes the design requirements for a battery box using a new process, and several important issues such as weld seam arrangement and error proofing in the manufacturing process are discussed. To address the issue of weld seam arrangement, the following three principles should be considered in the design: These principles include that the profile lap angle should be above 90°, three or more beams should not be lapped too closely together, and multiple brackets in close proximity should be designed as one unit.

Alternator, which supplies electric energy to a battery and electrical loads when it is rotated by engine via belt, is one of key components to improve vehicle fuel efficiency. We have reduced rectification loss from AC to DC with a MOSFET instead of a rectifier diode. It is important to turn on the MOSFET and off during a rectification period, called synchronous control, to avoid a current flow in the reverse direction from the battery. We turn it off so as to remain a certain conduction period through a body diode of the MOSFET before the rectification end. It is controlled by making a feedback process to coincide with an internal target conduction period based on the rotational speed of the alternator. We reduced a voltage surge risk at turn-off by changing the feedback gain depending on the sign of the time difference between the measured period and the target.

A test bench is proposed to be developed to measure relevant mechanics responses of lithium-ion batteries during different charge and discharge processes. It primarily consists of two parts: a mechanical structure part and a measurement and control part. The test system composed of an upper/lower battery fixing spacer and a battery is the core part of the mechanical structure part. This measurement and control part mostly contains an environmental control, an acquisition as well as a charge discharge system.

Recent electric vehicles use Li-ion batteries to power the main electric motor. To maintain the safety of the main electric motor battery using Li-ion cells, it is necessary to monitor the voltage of each cell. DENSO has developed a battery Electronic Control Unit (ECU) that contributes greatly to the reduction of the cost and the improvement of the reliability of the system. Each manufacturer has been developing a dedicated IC for monitoring the voltages of each cell of a battery. However, since the number of cells that can be monitored is limited, more than one IC is required to measure the voltages of a large number of cells. The increase in the number of ICs and the amount of insulator leads to the rise in system cost. DENSO has developed a dedicated IC that uses a proprietary high-breakdown voltage process, and which enables monitoring up to 24 cells with a single IC chip.

To comply with increasing fuel efficiency regulations, a low temperature radiator (LT radiator) is required to cool the charge-air system of a turbocharged engine. These engines are important to use for environmentally-friendly cars. Since heavy-duty and high-performance cars demand high cooling performance, the main radiator alone is typically insufficient in meeting the vehicle’s cooling requirements. An additional radiator installed in the front of the wheel-well is required to meet the extra cooling demand. In order to install this radiator in the front of the wheel-well, guaranteed performance in the limited packaging space and impact resistance of the leading tube edge are required. We developed the Supplementary Inner-Fin Radiator (SIR) which achieves the compact, high-performance, and durability requirements by use of an inner-fin tube (I/F tube). The purpose of this paper is to report our design approach and product specifications of the SIR.

For the purpose of improving vehicle fuel efficiency, it is necessary to reduce energy loss in the alternator. We have lowered the resistance of the rectifying device and connecting components, and control the rectifying device with an IC to reduce rectification loss. For the package design, we have changed the structure of the part on which the rectifying device is mounted into a high heat dissipation type. The new structure has enabled optimizing the size of the rectifying device, resulting in the reduction of size of the package. In addition, the rectifying device is mounted using a new soldering material and a new process, which has improved the reliability of the connection. Moreover, since the alternator has introduced a new system, the controller IC has a function for preventing malfunction of the rectifying device and a function for detecting abnormalities, in order to ensure safety.

The coming Diesel powertrains will remain as key technology in Europe to achieve the stringent 2025 CO2 emission targets. Especially for applications which are unlikely to be powered by pure EV technology like Light Duty vehicles and C/D segment vehicles which require a long driving range this is the case. To cope with these low CO2 targets the amount of electrification e.g. in form of 48V Belt-driven integrated Starter Generator (BSG) systems will increase. On the other hand the efficiency of the Diesel engine will increase which will result in lower exhaust gas temperatures resulting in a challenge to keep the required NOx reduction system efficiencies under Real Drive Emissions (RDE) driving conditions. In order to comply with the RDE legislation down to -7 °C ambient an efficient thermal management is one potential approach. Commonly utilized means to increase exhaust gas temperature are late injection and/or intake throttling, which enable sufficient NOx reduction efficiency.

The thermal management system, which is used to improve driving safety and thermal comfort, is one of the most important systems in electric vehicles. In recent years, researchers have coupled the heat pump system and the battery cooling system to effectively improve the heating COP (Coefficient of Performance). Therefore an accurate dynamic model of thermal management system plays a key role in investigating system performance and optimal control strategies. In this paper, an electric vehicle thermal management system based on four-way valve heat pump system is designed. The moving boundary method is improved by considering the unsteady flow of the external fluid, and then a 13-order dynamic model of the thermal management system is established. Firstly, the control equations of evaporator, condenser and chiller are derived according to the principle of conservation, and then a dynamic model of thermal management system is established in Simulink.

The ever increasing popularity of electric vehicles and higher requirement on safety and comfort has led heat pump air conditioning system indispensable in electric vehicle. Many studies have shown that the addition of nano particles contributes to great improvement on thermal conductivity than that of conventional refrigerants. Therefore, the application of the magnetic nanorefrigerant in heat pump air conditioning system has massive potential to heighten the heat transfer efficiency. This paper aims at studying the magnetic nanorefrigerant comprised of the magnetic nano powder Fe3O4 and refrigerant R134a. According to the relevant theoretical analyses and empirical formula, the heat transfer coefficient, density, viscosity, and other physical parameters are calculated approximately. In the heat pump air conditioning system of a certain type of electric vehicle, the special working condition parameters are selected to carry out calculation analysis with numerical analysis software.

A liquid-cooled plate is an important component for cooling batteries inside a battery package system. The structure of the liquid-cooling plate significantly affects the temperature conditions of power batteries and the energy consumption of the liquid-cooling system. However, there is a lack of precise knowledge regarding the specific factors that contribute to these impacts. In this study, the influence of structural parameters of flow channel on the heat dissipation performance is studied to solve above problems. A test bench for measuring battery pack cooling performances was built, and pressure drop of liquid-cooled plate and maximum temperature of battery were measured. A CFD model for liquid-cooled plate performance calculations was developed. Using the established model, pressure drop, and maximum temperature were calculated. The measured data are compared with the calculated date, which validate the proposed model.

Stringent emission regulations call for advanced catalyst substrates with thinner walls and higher cell density. However, substrates with higher cell density increase backpressure, thinner cell wall substrates have lower mechanical characteristics. Therefore we will focus on cell configurations that will show a positive effect on backpressure and emission performance. We found that hexagonal cells have a greater effect on emission and backpressure performance versus square or round cell configurations. This paper will describe in detail the advantage of hexagonal cell configuration versus round or square configurations with respect to the following features: 1 High Oxygen Storage Capacity (OSC) performance due to uniformity of the catalyst coating layer 2 Low backpressure due to the large hydraulic diameter of the catalyst cell 3 Quick light off characteristics due to efficient heat transfer and low thermal mass

In general, CFD analysis with porous media is precise enough to simulate airflow behavior in a heat exchanger core, placed in the vehicle. In a case when the airflow behavior is complex, however, the precision lowers according to our study. Therefore, we developed a new modeling method to keep high-precision and applied it to analysis of airflow in the vehicle. The concept is at first that the shape of tubes and the distance between the tubes are as the actual product so that the airflow with an oblique angle is to pass through a core. With this concept, airflow with an oblique angle hits the surface of tubes and passes through a core with changing the direction. Next, the concept is to reproduce the air pressure loss in actually-shaped fins, and therefore, we use a porous medium for the modeling of the fins instead of the product shape modeling to combine with the the tubes.

One of the main features of 48 V vehicles is the ability to coast at high speeds with the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) off. This can be realized due to the high torque and power the 48 V motor-generator provides which allows a quick and smooth re-cranking of the ICE. The coasting feature reduces the fuel consumption depending on frequency and duration of the coasting events. This depends in turn on driving pattern, driving style, State-of-Charge of the 48 V and 12 V batteries and the air-conditioning (A/C) system. In summer, if the A/C runs with a mechanical belt-driven compressor, the cabin inlet air temperature from the evaporator inevitably increases during each coasting event as the ICE turns off and cannot operate the compressor. If the evaporator temperature reaches a certain threshold at which the cabin comfort is noticeably affected, the ICE is re-cranked for resuming air-conditioning.

As the power of electric vehicles (EVs), lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are subjected to a variety of mechanical loads during electrochemical operation. Under this operating environment, lithium-ion batteries are at risk of internal short circuit, thermal runaway and even fire, threatening the safety of electric vehicles. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mechanical behaviors and failure mechanisms of the battery separator to improve the safety of lithium-ion batteries under mechanical loads. In this study, uniaxial tensile, through-thickness compression and biaxial punch tests were performed to characterize two types of separators, dry-processed polypropylene (PP) separators and wet-processed ceramic-coated separators, and to analyze and compare their mechanical properties and failure modes. The comprehensive mechanical tests show that the failure modes of the different separator types are different, with the more anisotropic separator having more complex failure modes.

Two-layer engine front end accessory drive systems (TEFEADS) are adopted generally by commercial vehicles due to the characteristics of the accessory pulleys, which have large torque and moment of inertia. An overrunning alternator decoupler (OAD) is an advanced vibration isolator which can reduce the amplitude of torsional vibration of alternator rotor effectively by an one-way transmission and they are more and more widely used in vehicles. This paper established a model of a generic layout of a TEFEADS with an OAD. The coupling effect between the TEFEADS, the nonlinear characteristics of OAD, the torsional vibration of crankshaft and the creeping on the belt were taken into account. A nine pulleys model was provided as a study example, the dynamic responses, which are respectively under steady and accelerating conditions, of the system were calculated by the established method and compared with the bench experiment.