Model-Based Design and Evaluation of State-of-the-Art Thermal Management Systems for Electrified Trucks

Abstract

Electric vehicle thermal management systems have in the last two decades grown to become complex systems. This development has come as a response to the unique challenges faced by electrified powertrains, particularly the driving range reduction in cold climate operation. The rapid increase in complexity makes the systems harder to design, control, and evaluate, and consequently, a need for systematic analysis and design tools has emerged. The key contribution of this work is a model-based simulation tool developed to enable the combined evaluation and control of state-of-the-art thermal management systems. To show how engineers may use the tool to solve industrially relevant problems, two simulation case studies are performed and presented. The first case study compares three thermal management system layouts of increasing complexity and shows how their performance varies as ambient temperature decreases. The second case study concerns the potential benefits of additional cooling radiators for fuel cell trucks under heavy load in hot climates.