RWTH Aachen University develops integrated thermal management for plug-in hybrid cars
A research team from the Institute of Automotive Engineering (ika) and the Institute for Combustion Engines (VKA) at RWTH Aachen University in Germany are investigating and developing new thermal architectures and control algorithms for plug-in hybrid cars.
The main goal of the research project is the improvement of the efficiency of plug-in hybrid cars, by means of optimising the thermal energy flows. Due to the high efficiency of electric drivetrains compared to combustion engines, future, highly electrified car concepts will have a lack of waste heat for cabin heating and window demist and defrost. As electric heating will considerably increase the costs of such features, reducing the thermal demands for the vehicle's cabin is essential. At first demand reduction approaches are investigated and benchmarked by dynamic simulations at ika. Simultaneously the researchers from VKA analyse the time dependent heat flows and temperature levels of the available waste heat from the drivetrain. Subsequently those results are used to design innovative and integrated thermal architectures. This first simulation based stage of the project started in October 2010 and will end in September 2012. A second stage will focus at the implementation of the results in a plug-in hybrid car and the benchmark under various boundary conditions. This research project is financed by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) within the initiative "E-Antrieb.NET", which promotes the development and production of key technologies for electric mobility. Contacts: Dipl.-Ing. Martin Nijs nijs@vka.rwth-aachen.de Phone: +49 241 80 95370 Dr.-Ing. Claude Bouvy bouvy@ika.rwth-aachen.de Phone: +49 241 8861 177
PRESS4TRANSPORT is funded by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Research under the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7)