Optimal Design of Hybrid Electric Fuel Cell Vehicles Under Uncertainty and Enterprise Considerations

Abstract

System research on Hybrid Electric Fuel Cell Vehicles (HEFCV) explores the tradeoffs among safety, fuel economy, acceleration, and other vehicle attributes. In addition to engineering considerations, inclusion of business aspects is important in a preliminary vehicle design optimization study. For a new technology, such as fuel cells, it is also important to include uncertainties stemming from manufacturing variability to market response to fuel price fluctuations. This paper applies a decomposition-based multidisciplinary design optimization strategy to an HEFCV. Uncertainty propagated throughout the system is accounted for in a computationally efficient manner. The latter is achieved with a new coordination strategy based on sequential linearizations. The hierarchically partitioned HEFCV design model includes enterprise, powertrain, fuel cell, and battery subsystem models. In addition to engineering uncertainties, the model takes into account uncertain behavior by consumers, and the expected maximum profit is calculated using probabilistic consumer preferences while satisfying engineering feasibility constraints.