Optimal Sizing, Gear Ratios, and Shifting Schedule of Battery‐Electric Mining Haul Trucks to Enhance Energy Efficiency

Abstract

At present, mining haul trucks (MHTs) directly deploy the on‐road heavy‐duty trucks’ battery‐electric powertrain, as they can cut down costs and emissions in mining. However, the operating patterns of MHT are different, e.g., ultraduty, low‐speed, and continuous road slopes, resulting in a mismatch between the dynamic and economic performance of mining required and the MHT achieved. The powertrain design and control influence the dynamic and economic performance, which can be quantitatively measured by top speed, gradeability, and energy consumption. This study uses an improved differential evolutionary algorithm to develop an integrated optimization platform to obtain the components sizing, gear ratio, and shifting schedule for the dedicated battery‐electric MHT. Mathematical models are established and validated using on‐site experiment data. An integrated optimization platform is initiated by concurrently formulating the motor sizing, gear ratio, and shifting schedule and solved by the improved differential evolutionary algorithm. Optimization results indicate that the economic performance is enhanced by 10.82%, 11.08%, 11.18%, and 11.20%, respectively, while maintaining or slightly improving the dynamic performance. Besides, the achievable maximum speed at the most common grade is boosted by 11.82%, 6.52%, 7.44%, and 6.52%, respectively. The study provides an approach to developing a battery‐electric powertrain for MHT.