Abstract
In this work a novel series hybrid powertrain concept is presented. The concept removes the requirement for a power electronic converter to manage the state of charge of the accumulators by controlling the power flow between the generator and accumulator. Instead, the engine and generator are directly coupled and the state of charge of the accumulators is maintained by controlling the speed and power output of the engine to control the power flow to the accumulators. Results are presented from a proof-of-concept system that was built for a vehicle with a target peak power of 60kW with supercapacitors. Models are also presented comparing and contrasting a battery version with the supercapacitor version for a Formula Student vehicle. The powertrain is particularly suited for applications which have very high torque requirements, and hence the use of a mechanical gearbox introduces significant cost & weight, and is also ideally suited for applications where power needs to be distributed throughout an application to multiple locations, and hence multiple mechanical linkages would normally be required. The supercapacitor version is most suited to applications with high peak to average load ratios and noisy load cycles, and the battery version could be seen as a low cost route to range extend a battery electric vehicle.
Highlights
The introduction of commercially available hybrid electric vehicles such as the Toyota Prius in 1997, more recently battery electric vehicles such as the Nissan LEAF in 2010, and the anticipated launch of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles by many manufacturers in 2015, heralds a period of transition in the automotive industry
The hybrid concept presented in this paper is a series hybrid where the internal combustion engine (ICE) is decoupled from the wheels, and is connected directly to an electrical generator (EG) at all times, via a fixed ratio one-stage transmission
The mule vehicle was a battery-electric vehicle which had been built to race in the Institute of Mechanical Engineer’s Formula Student competition in 2011
Summary
The introduction of commercially available hybrid electric vehicles such as the Toyota Prius in 1997, more recently battery electric vehicles such as the Nissan LEAF in 2010, and the anticipated launch of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles by many manufacturers in 2015, heralds a period of transition in the automotive industry. Most systems are based upon AC generators and drive motors, and most series hybrids based upon DC systems use power electronics to regulate power between the generator and manage the state-of-charge (SOC) of the accumulators, and only limited work has been conducted on so called ‘passive’ hybrid systems where the accumulator is directly coupled to the generator [2]. This is despite the world’s first ever hybrid vehicle in 1900, the Lohner-Porsche Hybrid being of this type, and some experimentation with super-heavy tanks during WWII. The various methods of controlling such systems had not been fully explored
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