Conceptual design upgrade on hybrid powertrains resulting from electric improvements

Abstract

hybrid vehicles have experienced a great boom in recent years thanks to the increasing spread of 'parallel' architectures, often realized by a planetary gear train (hybrid Synergy Drive).at the same time, an enhancement of electrical and electronic components has been experienced; these improvements especially concern reliability and efficiency. Particularly, the possibility of using supercapacitors with increasing storage performances makes possible to manage higher power flows together with a superior efficiency. These innovations may challenge the architecture used nowadays on medium size cars.The hybrid series architecture, which allows the optimal management of the combustion engine, has been disadvantaged until now by the electric powertrain efficiency.In the current scenario, this architecture could benefit from the above-mentioned technology, becoming a competitive alternative to the actual powertrain configurations. The aim of this article is the efficiency analysis, in order to evaluate the operational energy efficiency achievable thanks to this configuration. This analysis will be carried out considering all the possible working conditions of the different powertrains.

Turbocompound Power Unit Modelling for a Supercapacitor-Based Series Hybrid Vehicle Application

“…The shift of power from the ICE to the TC is shown in Figure 7 as a function of the fuel flow rate; again, the red line shows that the influence of ICE speed on this parameter is negligible. (11), (21), and the extrapolation process whereas the green line shows the results obtained in [38] for the same values of β.…”

“…Additionally, in the extrapolation area, the values obtained with the analytical approach show a good correspondence with the experimental results and therefore also in the extrapolation area the model is validated. (21), and the extrapolation process whereas the green line shows the results obtained in [38] for the same values of β.…”

“…The increasing interest in sustainable mobility has led to the study and development of new hybrid architectures, which can be mainly divided in three main categories [1]: parallel [2][3][4][5][6], series/parallel (also known as power-split) [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14], and series hybrid [15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. Passalacqua et al [22] proposed a new series architecture configuration for medium size cars, with a storage system based only on supercapacitors and they highlighted the benefits in terms of internal combustion engine (ICE) optimal working points.…”

Advantages of Using Supercapacitors and Silicon Carbide on Hybrid Vehicle Series Architecture

“…A parallel structure like the one sketched in Figure 1 was used; in fact, despite power-split architecture it is the most wide spread on the market, the first is more energy saving [24]. An 80% charge-discharge battery efficiency was considered for both architectures; this efficiency value can be considered both an optimistic evaluation for a NiMH battery and a real working condition efficiency for a Li-ion battery [25,26]; in any case battery efficiency has a low impact on the overall powertrain efficiency as far as parallel architecture is concerned [27]. As for series architecture, a simple rule-based energy management system was used in parallel architecture.…”

A Refined Loss Evaluation of a Three-Switch Double Input DC-DC Converter for Hybrid Vehicle Applications

“…As far as battery storages are concerned, lithium batteries have increased their performance, reaching a key role in hybrid medium size car applications [1][2][3][4][5][6]. On the other hand, many studies have been carried out considering supercapacitor storages on hybrid vehicle, both combining batteries and supercapacitors [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] or using only supercapacitors as the storage system [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. Regarding the combined use of batteries and supercapacitors, this configuration matches the pros of both type of storages (i.e., battery high specific energy and supercapacitor high specific power).…”