Study of a Concrete Mixer Hybrid Truck

Abstract

Decrease of availability of fossil fuels and environment issues, push research towards the development of high efficiency power trains for vehicles that transport people, goods and mobile operating machines, like the concrete mixer trucks considered in this paper. Conventional concrete mixer trucks use diesel engine to move the truck and a hydraulic system which keep spinning the concrete drum. A hybrid powertrain based on battery-powered electrical drives can replace the conventional hydraulic system assuring an efficiency improvement. Furthermore, thanks to the reversibility of the electrical drives, it is possible to recover kinetic energy during the braking phases of the truck. Aim of this paper is to study and develop a hybrid powertrain for the concrete mixer drum. The study is based on a full energetic model of the vehicle developed for sizing the components and designing the control strategies. A model of the conventional hydraulic mixer truck has also been proposed in order to evaluate the benefit introduced by the proposed hybrid system. Simulation models have been validated comparing experimental data collected on a conventional mixer truck in different operating conditions.