FASTSim: A Model to Estimate Vehicle Efficiency, Cost and Performance

Abstract

The Future Automotive Systems Technology Simulator (FASTSim) is a high-level advanced vehicle powertrain systems analysis tool supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Vehicle Technologies Office. FASTSim provides a quick and simple approach to compare powertrains and estimate the impact of technology improvements on light-and heavy-duty vehicle efficiency, performance, cost, and battery life. The input data for most light-duty vehicles can be automatically imported. Those inputs can be modified to represent variations of the vehicle or powertrain. The vehicle and its components are then simulated through speed-versus-time drive cycles. At each time step, FASTSim accounts for drag, acceleration, ascent, rolling resistance, each powertrain component's efficiency and power limits, and regenerative braking. Conventional vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, all-electric vehicles, compressed natural gas vehicles, and fuel cell vehicles are included. Powertrains with electric-traction drive can optionally be simulated using electric roadway technologies such as dynamic wireless power transfer. FASTSim also has an interface for running large batches of real-world drive cycles. FASTSim's calculation framework and balance among detail, accuracy, and speed enable it to simulate thousands of driven miles in minutes. The key components and vehicle outputs have been validated by comparing the model outputs to test data for many different vehicles to provide confidence in the results. A graphical user interface makes FASTSim easy and efficient to use. FASTSim is freely available for download from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's website (see www.nrel.gov/fastsim). Powertrain Components FASTSim captures the key inputs for most high-level vehicle powertrain modeling. They include parameters that define the vehicle, including the fuel storage, fuel converter, motor, traction battery, wheel, and energy management strategy.

Technological growth of fuel efficiency in european automobile market 1975–2015

“…Usually a powertrain simulation tool is built that takes vehicle design, engine control technology, and other vehicle attributes as inputs and estimates fuel efficiency of vehicles (Gao et al, 2015a;Gao et al, 2015b;Chen and Meier, 2016). Several publicly available tools are out there, such as FASTSim, Autonomie (Brook et al, 2015;Halbach et al, 2010;Morrison and Chen, 2011;Chen and Fan, 2014), and some previous studies were conducted using this approach (Vijayagopal and Rousseau, 2011;Moawad et al, 2014;Borken-Kleefeld and Chen, 2015;Chen and Borken-Kleefeld, 2014;Chen and Borken-Kleefeld, 2016). However, in this paper, our purposes include both studying impacts of vehicle attributes on fuel consumption and investigating technological progress trends of fuel efficiency in EU cars.…”

Trends in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of future light duty electric vehicles

“…FASTSim) tool developed and maintained by the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), was used to estimate the average vehicle energy demand ( ). FASTSim simulates vehicle energy demands as a function of primary physical forces including drag, acceleration, ascent, rolling resistance, powertrain component efficiency and power limits, and regenerative braking(Brooker et al, 2015). Since FASTSim models vehicle performance at the powertrain component level, it allows users to modify the parameters of vehicle powertrain, such as battery capacity, energy density, motor power, glider dimensions, and weight to examine how powertrain design impacts fuel economy.…”

Adaptive Rule-Based Energy Management Strategy for a Parallel HEV

“…To evaluate the performance of the proposed EMS strategy, a vehicle model is needed. The vehicle model used in this paper is physics-based and was adapted from [20,21]. It includes modules implemented in Simulink ® for the engine, transmission, vehicle road load, battery and driver.…”